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Marshall
#2 in our series by H.E. Marshall
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Edition: 10
Language: English
H.E. Marshall
English Literature
YEAR 7
HAS there ever been a time when no stories were told? Has there
ever been a people who did not care to listen? I think not.
*Robert Browning.
In the dim, far-off times when our forefathers were wild, naked
savages, they had no books. Like ourselves, when we were tiny,
they could neither read nor write. But do you think that they
had no stories? Oh, yes! We may be sure that when the day's
work was done, when the fight or the chase was over, they
gathered round the wood fire and listened to the tales of the
story-teller.
But as time went on, as life became more easy, in one way or
another the savage learned to become less savage. Then as he
changed, the tales he listened to changed too. They were no
longer all of war, of revenge; they told of love also. And
later, when the story of Christ had come to soften men's hearts
and brighten men's lives, the stories told of faith and purity
and gentleness.
At length, after many years had passed, men began to write down
these tales, so that they might not be forgotten. These first
books we call Manuscripts, from the Latin words manus, a hand,
and scribere, to write, for they were all written by hand. Even
after they were written down there were many changes made in the
tales, for those who wrote or copied them would sometimes miss
lines or alter others. Yet they were less changed than they had
been when told only by word of mouth.
As on and on time went, every year more stories were told and
sung and written down. The first stories which our forefathers
told in the days long, long ago, and which were never written
down, are lost forever. Even many of those stories which were
written are lost too, but a few still remain, and from them we
can learn much of the life and the history of the people who
lived in our land ten and twelve hundred years ago, or more.
For a long time books were all written by hand. They were very
scarce and dear, and only the wealthy could afford to have them,
and few could read them. Even great knights and nobles could not
read, for they spent all their time in fighting and hunting, and
had little time in which to learn. So it came about that the
monks who lived a quiet and peaceful life became the learned men.
In the monasteries it was that books were written and copied.
There too they were kept, and the monasteries became not only the
schools, but the libraries of the country.
At first, too, we care only for the story itself. We do not mind
very much in what words it is told so long as it is a story. But
later we begin to care very much indeed what words the story-
teller uses, and how he uses them. It is only, perhaps, when we
have learned to hear with our eyes that we know the true joy of
books. Yes, hear with our eyes, for it is joy in the sound of
the words that makes our breath come fast, which brings smiles to
our lips or tears to our eyes. Yet we do not need to read the
words aloud, the sight of the black letters on the white page is
enough.
Now the people who lived in the British Isles long ago were not
English. It will be simplest for us to call them all Celts and
to divide them into two families, the Gaels and the Cymry. The
Gaels lived in Ireland and in Scotland, and the Cymry in England
and Wales.
It was from Ireland that the Scots came to Scotland, and when
they came they brought with them many tales. So it comes about
that in old Scottish and in old Irish manuscripts we find the
same stories.
Many of the manuscripts which are kept in Ireland have never been
translated out of the old Irish in which they were written, so
they are closed books to all but a few scholars, and we need not
talk about them. But of one of the great treasures of old Irish
literature we will talk. This is the Leabhar Na h-Uidhre, or
Book of the Dun Cow. It is called so because the stories in it
were first written down by St. Ciaran in a book made from the
skin of a favorite cow of a dun color. That book has long been
lost, and this copy of it was made in the eleventh century.
The name of this old book helps us to remember that long ago
there was no paper, and that books were written on vellum made
from calf-skin and upon parchment made from sheep-skin. It was
not until the twelfth century that paper began to be made in some
parts of Europe, and it was not until the fifteenth century that
paper books became common in England.
In the Book of the Dun Cow, and in another old book called the
Book of Leinster, there is written the great Irish legend called
the Tain Bo Chuailgne or the Cattle Raid of Cooley.
This is a very old tale of the time soon after the birth of
Christ. In the book we are told how this story had been written
down long, long ago in a book called the Great Book Written on
Skins. But a learned man carried away that book to the East.
Then, when many years had passed, people began to forget the
story of the Cattle Raid. So the Chief minstrel called all the
other minstrels together to ask if any of them knew the tale.
But none of them could remember more than a few verses of it.
Therefore the chief minstrel asked all his pupils to travel into
far countries to search for the rest which was lost.
So first all their wooden and metal vessels were brought. But
they were both alike.
Then all their jewels, their rings and bracelets, necklets and
crowns were brought, but they, too, were equal.
Then all their robes were brought, crimson and blue, green,
yellow, checked and striped, black and white. They, too, were
equal.
Next from the fields and pastures great herds of sheep were
brought. They, too, were equal.
Then from the green plains fleet horses, champing steeds came.
Great herds of swine from forest and glen were brought. They,
too, were equal.
Then Meav's sorrow was bitter, and calling a messenger, she asked
if he knew where might be found a young bull to match with White-
horned.
"Go then,' said Meav, "and ask Dawra to lend me the Bull for a
year. Tell him that he shall be well repaid, that he shall
receive fifty heifers and Brown Bull back again at the end of
that time. And if Dawra should seem unwilling to lend Brown
Bull, tell him that he may come with it himself, and that he
shall receive here land equal to his own, a chariot worth thirty-
six cows, and he shall have my friendship ever after."
So taking with him nine others, the messenger set out and soon
arrived at Cooley. And when Dawra heard why the messengers had
come, he received them kindly, and said at once that they should
have Brown Bull.
As he spoke, a servant of Dawra came with food and drink for the
strangers, and hearing how they spoke among themselves, he
hastily and in wrath dashed the food upon the table, and
returning to his master repeated to him the words of the
messenger.
Then was Dawra very wrathful. And when, in the morning, the
messengers came before him asking that he should fulfill his
promise, he refused them.
Then began a mighty war between the men of Ulster and the men of
Connaught. And after many fights there was a great battle in
which Meav was defeated. Yet was she triumphant, for she had
gained possession of the Brown Bull.
But the Queen had little cause for triumph, for when Brown Bull
and White-horned met there was a fearful combat between them.
The whole land echoed with their bellowing. The earth shook
beneath their feet and the sky grew dark with flying sods of
earth and with flecks of foam. After long fighting Brown Bull
conquered, and goring White-horned to death, ran off with him
impaled upon his horns, shaking his shattered body to pieces as
he ran.
But Brown Bull, too, was wounded to death. Mad with pain and
wounds, he turned to his own land, and there
"He took the goads to his horses, and his whip inlaid in his
right hand. He took the reins to hold back his horses in his
left hand. Then he put the iron inlaid breast-plate on his
horses, so that they were covered from forehead to fore-foot with
spears, and points, and lances, and hard points, so that every
motion in this chariot was war-near, so that every corner, and
every point, and every end, and every front of this chariot was a
way of tearing."*
We can almost see that wild charioteer and his horses, sheathed
in bristling armor with "every front a way of tearing," as they
dash amid the foe. And all through we come on lines like these
full of color and detail, which tell us of the life of those folk
of long ago.
The story is told in many old books, and in many ways both in
prose and in verse. The oldest and shortest version is in the
Book of Leinster, the same book in which is found The Tain.
The tale goes that one day King Conor and his nobles feasted at
the house of Felim, his chief story-teller. And while they
feasted a daughter was born to Felim the story-teller. Then
Cathbad the Druid, who was also at the feast, became exceeding
sad. He foretold that great sorrow and evil should come upon the
land because of this child, and so he called her Deirdre, which
means trouble or alarm.
When the nobles heard that, they wished to slay the new-born
babe. But Conor spoke.
Now when fourteen years had passed, it happened one snowy day
that Deirdre's tutor killed a calf to provide food for their
little company. And as the calf's blood was spilled upon the
snow, a raven came to drink of it. When Deirdre saw that, she
sighed and said, "Would that I had a husband whose hair was as
the color of the raven, his cheeks as blood, and his skin as
snow."
After that here was no rest for Deirdre until she had seen Naisi.
And when they met they loved each other so that Naisi took her
and fled with her to Scotland far from Conor the King. For they
knew that when the King learned that fair Deirdre had been stolen
from him, he would be exceeding wrathful.
"Naisi and Deirdre were seated together one day, and between them
Conor's chess board, they playing upon it.
"Naisi heard a cry and said, 'I hear the call of a man of Erin.'
"'That was not the call of a man of Erin,' says Deirdre, 'but the
call of a man of Alba.'
"Deirdre knew the first cry of Fergus, but she concealed it.
Fergus uttered the second cry.
"Fergus sent forth the third cry, and the sons of Usnach knew it
was Fergus that sent for the cry. And Naisi ordered Ardan to go
to meet Fergus. Then Deirdre declared she knew the first call
sent forth by Fergus.
"'Why didst thou conceal it, then, my Queen?' says Naisi.
"'A vision I saw last night,' says Deirdre, 'namely that three
birds came unto us having three sups of honey in their beaks, and
that they left them with us, and that they took three sups of our
blood with them.'
"'It is,' says Deirdre, 'that Fergus comes unto us with a message
of peace from Conor, for more sweet is not honey than the message
of peace of the false man.'
"'Let that be,' says Naisi. 'Fergus is long in the port; and go,
Ardan, to meet him and bring him with thee.'"*
*Theophilus O'Flanagan
And when Fergus came there were kindly greetings between the
friends who had been long parted. Then Fergus told the three
brothers that Conor had forgiven them, and that he longed to see
them back again in the land of Erin.
*Douglas Hyde
Such in a few words is the story of Deirdre. But you must read
the tale itself to find out how beautiful it is. That you can
easily do, for it has been translated many times out of the old
Gaelic in which it was first written and it has been told so
simply that even those of you who are quite young can read it for
yourselves.
In both The Tain and in Deirdre we find the love of fighting, the
brave joy of the strong man when he finds a gallant foe. The
Tain is such history as those far-off times afforded, but it is
history touched with fancy, wrought with poetry. In the Three
Sorrows we have Romance. They are what we might call the novels
of the time. It is in stories like these that we find the keen
sense of what is beautiful in nature, the sense of "man's
brotherhood with bird and beast, star and flower," which has
become the mark of "Celtic" literature. We cannot put it into
words, perhaps, for it is something mystic and strange, something
that takes us nearer fairyland and makes us see that land of
dreams with clearer eyes.
BOOKS TO READ
WHO wrote the stories which are found in the old Gaelic
manuscripts we do not know, yet the names of some of the old
Gaelic poets have come down to us. The best known of all is
perhaps that of Ossian. But as Ossian, if he ever lived, lived
in the third century, as it is not probable that his poems were
written down at the time, and as the oldest books that we have
containing any of his poetry were written in the twelfth century,
it is very difficult to be sure that he really made the poems
called by his name.
Now little James watched the red coats of the southern soldiers
as, with bayonets gleaming in the sun, they wound through the
glens. He heard the Highland battle-cry and the clash of steel
on steel, for fighting came near his home, and his own people
joined the standard of the Pretender. Little James never forgot
these things, and long afterwards, when he grew to be a man and
wrote poetry, it was full of the sounds of battle, full, too, of
love for mountain and glen and their rolling mists.
The Macphersons were poor, but they saw that their son was
clever, and they determined that he should be well taught. So
when he left school they sent him to college, first to Aberdeen
and then to Edinburgh.
Before he was twenty James had left college and become master of
the school in his own native village. He did not, however, like
that very much, and soon gave it up to become tutor in a family.
The book was a great success. All who read it were delighted
with the poems, and said that if there was any more such poetry
in the Highlands, it should be gathered together and printed
before it was lost and forgotten for ever. For since the '45 the
English had done everything to make the Highlanders forget their
old language and customs. They were forbidden to wear the kilt
or the tartan, and everything was done to make them speak English
and forget Gaelic.
When this new book of Gaelic poetry came out, it again was a
great success. It was greeted with delight by the greatest poets
of France, Germany, and Italy, and was soon translated into many
languages. Macpherson was no longer a poor Highland laddie, but
a man of world-wide fame. Yet it was not because of his own
poetry that he was famous, but because he had found (so he said)
some poems of a man who lived fifteen hundred years before, and
translated them into English. And although Macpherson's book is
called The Poems of Ossian, it is written in prose. But it is a
prose which is often far more beautiful and poetical than much
that is called poetry.
Then in England people began to say that there never had been an
Ossian at all, and that Macpherson had invented both the poems
and all the people that they were about. For the English knew
little of the Highlanders and their customs. Even after the '15
and the '45 people in the south knew little about the north and
those who lived there. They thought of it as a land of wild
mountains and glens, a land of mists and cloud, a land where wild
chieftains ruled over still wilder clans, who, in their lonely
valleys and sea-girt islands, were for ever warring against each
other. How could such a people, they asked, a people of savages,
make beautiful poetry?
So a quarrel, which has become famous, began between the two men.
And as Dr. Johnson was far better known than Macpherson, most
people agreed with him and believed that Macpherson had told a
"literary lie," and that he had made up all the stories.
Dr. Johnson and Macpherson were very angry with and rude to each
other. Still that did not settle the question as to who had
written the stories; indeed it has never been settled. And what
most men believe now is that Macpherson did really gather from
among the people of the Highlands many scraps of ancient poetry
and tales, but that he added to them and put them together in
such a way as to make them beautiful and touching. To do even
that, however, a true poet was needed, so people have, for the
most part, given up arguing about whether Macpherson wrote Ossian
or not, and are glad that such a beautiful book has been written
by some one.
I do not think that you will want to read Ossian for yourself for
a long time to come, for the stories are not always easy to
follow. They are, too, often clumsy, wandering, and badly put
together. But in spite of that there is much beauty in them, and
some day I hope you will read them.
In the next chapter you will find one of the stories of Ossian
called Fingal. Fingal was a great warrior and the father of
Ossian, and the story takes place in Ireland. It is told partly
in Macpherson's words.
Chapter V THE STORY OF FINGAL
"'No,' replied the blue-eyed chief, 'I never yield to mortal man.
Dark Cathullin shall be great or dead.'"
"'When did I fly?' replied the King. 'When fled Swaran from the
battle of spears? When did I shrink from danger, chief of the
little soul? Shall Swaran fly from a hero? Were Fingal himself
before me my soul should not darken in fear. Arise, to battle my
thousands! pour round me like the echoing main. Gather round the
bright steel of your King; strong as the rocks of my land, that
meet the storm with joy, and stretch their dark pines to the
wind.'
Then above the clang and clamor of dreadful battle we hear the
mournful dirge of minstrels wailing o'er the dead.
Then once again, the louder for the mourning pause, we hear the
din of battle.
"As roll a thousand waves to the rocks, so Swaran's host came on.
As meets a rock a thousand waves, so Erin met Swaran of spears.
Death raises all his voices around, and mixes with the sounds of
shields. Each hero is a pillar of darkness; the sword a beam of
fire in his hand. The field echoes from wing to wing, as a
hundred hammers that rise by turn, on the red son of the
furnace."
But now the day is waning. To the noise and horror of battle the
mystery of darkness is added. Friend and foe are wrapped in the
dimness of twilight.
But the fight was not ended, for neither Cathullin nor Swaran had
gained the victory, and ere gray morning broke the battle was
renewed.
And in this second day's fight Swaran was the victor, but while
the battle still raged white-sailed ships appeared upon the sea.
It was Fingal who came, and Swaran had to fight a second foe.
"Now from the gray mists of the ocean, the white-sailed ships of
Fingal appeared. High is the grove of their masts, as they nod
by turns on the rolling wave."
Swaran saw them from the hill on which he fought, and turning
from the pursuit of the men of Erin, he marched to meet Fingal.
But Cathullin, beaten and ashamed, fled to hide himself:
"bending, weeping, sad and slow, and dragging his long spear
behind, Cathullin sank in Cromla's wood, and mourned his fallen
friends. He feared the face of Fingal, who was wont to greet him
from the fields of renown."
But although Cathullin fled, between Fingal and Swaran battle was
renewed till darkness fell. A second day dawned, and again and
again the hosts closed in deadly combat until at length Fingal
and Swaran met face to face.
"There was a clang of arms! their every blow like the hundred
hammers of the furnace. Terrible is the battle of the kings;
dreadful the look of their eyes. Their dark brown shields are
cleft in twain. Their steel flies, broken from their helms.
"They fling their weapons down. Each rushes to his hero's grasp.
Their sinewy arms bend round each other: they turn from side to
side, and strain and stretch their large and spreading limbs
below. But when the pride of their strength arose they shook the
hills with their heels. Rocks tumble from their places on high;
the green-headed bushes are overturned. At length the strength
of Swaran fell; the king of the groves is bound."
"'King of Lochlin, let thy face brighten with gladness, and thine
ear delight in the harp. Dreadful as the storm of thine ocean
thou hast poured thy valor forth; thy voice has been like the
voice of thousands when they engage in war.
Thus Swaran and his warriors departed, and Fingal, calling his
men together, set forth to hunt. And as he hunted far in the
woods he met Cathullin, still hiding, sad and ashamed. But
Fingal comforted the beaten hero, reminding him of past
victories. Together they returned to Fingal's camp, and there
the heroes sang and feasted until "the soul of Cathullin rose.
The strength of his arm returned. Gladness brightened along his
face. Thus the night passed away in song. We brought back the
morning with joy.
"'Spread the sail,' said the King, 'seize the winds as they pour
from Lena.'
"We rose on the wave with songs. We rushed with joy through the
foam of the deep."
YOU remember that the Celtic family was divided into two
branches, the Gaelic and the Cymric. So far we have only spoken
about the Gaels, but the Cymry had their poets and historians
too. The Cymry, however, do not claim such great age for their
first known poets as do the Gaels. Ossian, you remember, was
supposed to live in the third century, but the oldest Cymric
poets whose names we know were supposed to live in the sixth
century. As, however, the oldest Welsh manuscripts are of the
twelfth century, it is again very difficult to prove that any of
the poems were really written by those old poets.
But this is very certain, that the Cymry, like the Gaels, had
their bards and minstrels who sang of the famous deeds of heroes
in the halls of the chieftains, or in the market-places for the
people.
From the time that the Romans left Britain to the time when the
Saxons or English were at length firmly settled in the land, many
fierce struggles, many stirring events must have taken place.
That time must have been full of brave deeds such as the
minstrels loved to sing. But that part of our history is very
dark. Much that is written of it is little more than a fairy
tale, for it was not until long afterwards that anything about
this time was written down.
The great hero of the struggle between the Britons and the Saxons
was King Arthur, but it was not until many many years after the
time in which he lived that all the splendid stories of his
knights, of his Round Table, and of his great conquests began to
take the form in which we know them. Indeed, in the earliest
Welsh tales the name of Arthur is hardly known at all. When he
is mentioned it is merely as a warrior among other warriors
equally great, and not as the mighty emperor that we know. The
Arthur that we love is the Arthur of literature, not the Arthur
of history. And I think you may like to follow the story of the
Arthur of literature, and see how, from very little, it has grown
so great that now it is known all the world over. I should like
you to remember, too, that the Arthur story is not the only one
which repeats itself again and again throughout our Literature.
There are others which have caught the fancy of great masters and
have been told by them in varying ways throughout the ages. But
of them all, the Arthur story is perhaps the best example.
Mabinogion really means tales for the young. Except the History
of Taliesin, all the stories in this book are translated from a
very old manuscript called the Red Book of Hergest.. This Red
Book belongs to the fourteenth century, but many of the stories
are far far older, having, it is thought, been told in some form
or other for hundreds of years before they were written down at
all. Unlike many old tales, too, they are written in prose, not
in poetry.
Now, although Ludd was such a wise king, three plagues fell upon
the island of Britain. "The first was a certain race that came
and was called Coranians, and so great was their knowledge that
there was no discourse upon the face of the island, however low
it might be spoken, but what, if the wind met it, it was known to
them.
"The second plague was a shriek which came on every May-eve over
every hearth in the island of Britain. And this went through
peoples' hearts and frightened them out of their senses.
"The third plague was, however much of provision and food might
be prepared in the king's courts, were there even so much as a
year's provision of meat and drink, none of it could ever be
found, except what was consumed upon the first night."
The story goes on to tell how good King Ludd freed the island of
Britain from all three plagues and lived in peace all the days of
his life.
Later, when the Romans left our island and the Picts and Scots
oppressed the Britons, many of them fled back over the sea to
Brittany or Armorica, as it used to be called. Later still, when
the Saxons came, the Britons were driven by degrees into the
mountains of Wales and the wilds of Cornwall, while others fled
again across the sea to Brittany. These took with them the
stories which their minstrels told, and told them in their new
home. So it came about that the stories which were told in Wales
and in Cornwall were told in Brittany also.
Now you know that in 1066 the great Duke William came sailing
over the sea to conquer England, and with him came more soldiers
from Brittany than from any other land. Perhaps the songs of the
minstrels had kept alive in the hearts of the Bretons a memory of
their island home. Perhaps that made them glad to come to help
to drive out the hated Saxons. At any rate come they did, and
brought with them their minstrel tales.
And soon through all the land the Norman power spread. And
whether they first heard them in Armorica or in wild Wales, the
Norman minstrels took the old Welsh stories and made them their
own. And the best of all the tales were told of Arthur and his
knights.
The Normans, then, brought tales of Arthur with them when they
came to England. They heard there still other tales and improved
them, and Arthur thus began to grow into a great hero. I will
now go on to show how he became still greater.
In the reign of Henry I. (the third Norman king who ruled our
land) there lived a monk called Geoffrey of Monmouth. He was
filled with the love of his land, and he made up his mind to
write a history of the kings of Britain.
Geoffrey wrote his book in Latin, because at this time it was the
language which most people could understand. For a long time
after the Normans came to England, they spoke Norman French. The
English still spoke English, and the British Welsh or Cymric.
But every one almost who could read at all could read Latin. So
Geoffrey chose to write in Latin. He said he translated all that
he wrote from an old British book which had been brought from
Brittany and given to him. But that old British book has never
been seen by any one, and it is generally thought that Geoffrey
took old Welsh tales and fables for a foundation, invented a good
deal more, and so made his history, and that the "old British
Book" never existed at all. His book may not be very good
history - indeed, other historians were very angry and said that
Geoffrey "lied saucily and shamelessly" - but it is very
delightful to read.
Geoffrey tells of many battles and of how the British fought, not
only with the Saxons, but among themselves. And at last he says:
"As barbarism crept in they were no longer called Britons, but
Welsh, a word derived either from Gualo, one of their dukes, or
from Guales, their Queen, or else from their being barbarians.
But the Saxons did wiselier, kept peace and concord amongst
themselves, tilling their fields and building anew their cities
and castles. . . . But the Welsh degenerating from the nobility
of the Britons, never after recovered the sovereignty of the
island, but on the contrary quarreling at one time amongst
themselves, and at another with the Saxons, never ceased to have
bloodshed on hand either in public or private feud."
Geoffrey then says that he hands over the matter of writing about
the later Welsh and Saxon kings to others, "Whom I bid be silent
as to the kings of the Britons, seeing that they have not that
book in the British speech which Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford,
did convey hither out of Brittany, the which I have in this wise
been at the pains of translating into the Latin speech."
BOOKS TO READ
Walter Map, like so many of the writers of this early time, was a
priest. He was chaplain to Henry II., and was still alive when
John, the bad king, sat upon the throne.
The first writers of the Arthur story had made a great deal of
manly strength: it was often little more than a tale of hard
knocks given and taken. Later it became softened by the thought
of courtesy, with the idea that knights might give and take these
hard knocks for the sake of a lady they loved, and in the cause
of all women.
Now something full of mystery was added to the tale. This was
the Quest of the Holy Grail.
The Holy Grail was said to be a dish used by Christ at the Last
Supper. It was also said to have been used to hold the sacred
blood which, when Christ hung upon the cross, flowed from his
wounds. The Holy Grail came into the possession of Joseph of
Arimathea, and by him was brought to Britain. But after a time
the vessel was lost, and the story of it even forgotten, or only
remembered in some dim way.
And this is the story which the poet-priest, Walter Map, used to
give new life and new glory to the tales of Arthur. He makes the
knights of the round table set forth to search for the Grail.
They ride far away over hill and dale, through dim forests and
dark waters. They fight with men and fiends, alone and in
tournaments. They help fair ladies in distress, they are tempted
to sin, they struggle and repent, for only the pure in heart may
find the holy vessel.
The first great English writer of the stories of Arthur was named
Layamon. He, too, was a priest, and, like Wace, he wrote in
verse.
Like Wace, Layamon called his book the Brut, because it is the
story of the Britons, who took their name from Brutus, and of
Arthur the great British hero. This book is known, therefore, as
Layamon's Brut. Layamon took Wace's book for a foundation, but
he added a great deal to it, and there are many stories in
Layamon not to be found in Wace. It is probable that Layamon did
not make up these stories, but that many of them are old tales he
heard from the people among whom he lived.
Layamon finished his book towards the end of the twelfth century
or the beginning of the thirteenth. Perhaps he sat quietly
writing it in his cell when the angry barons were forcing King
John to sign the Magna Charta. At least he wrote it when all
England was stirring to new life again. The fact that he wrote
in English shows that, for Layamon's Brut is the first book
written in English after the Conquest. This book proves how
little hold the French language had upon the English people, for
although our land had been ruled by Frenchmen for a hundred and
fifty years, there are very few words in Layamon that are French
or that are even made from French.
But although Layamon wrote his book in English, it was not the
English that we speak to-day. It was what is called Early
English or even sometimes Semi-Saxon. If you opened a book of
Layamon's Brut you would, I fear, not be able to read it.
Now, in Anglo-Saxon poetry the lines were divided into two half-
lines. And in each half there had to be two or more accented
syllables. But there might also be as many unaccented syllables
as the poet liked. So in this way the lines were often very
unequal, some being quite short and others long. Three of the
accented syllables, generally two in the first half and one in
the second half of the line, were alliterative. That is, they
began with the same letter. In translating, of course, the
alliteration is very often lost. But sometimes the Semi-Saxon
words and the English words are very like each other, and the
alliteration can be kept. So that even in translation we can get
a little idea of what the poetry sounded like. For instance, the
line "wat heo ihoten weoren: and wonene heo comen," the
alliteration is on w, and may be translated "what they called
were, and whence they came," still keeping the alliteration.
I hope that you are not tired with this long explanation, for I
think if you take the trouble to understand it, it may make the
rest of this chapter more interesting. Now I will tell you a
little more of the poem itself.
You see by this last line that Layamon has forgotten the
difference between Briton and English. He has forgotten that in
his lifetime Arthur fought against the English. To him Arthur
has become an English hero. And perhaps he wrote these last
words with the hope in his heart that some day some one would
arise who would deliver his dear land from the rule of the
stranger Normans. This, we know, happened. Not, indeed, by the
might of one man, but by the might of the English spirit, the
strong spirit which had never died, and which Layamon himself
showed was still alive when he wrote his book in English.
Morte d'Arthur really means the death of Arthur, but the book
tells not only of his death, but of his birth and life, and of
the wonderful deeds of many of his knights. This is how Malory
tells of the manner in which Arthur came to be king.
But first let me tell you that Uther Pendragon, the King, had
died, and although Arthur was his son and should succeed to him,
men knew it not. For after Arthur was born he was given to the
wizard Merlin, who took the little baby to Sir Ector, a gallant
knight, and charged him to care for him. And Sir Ector, knowing
nothing of the child, brought him up as his own son.
Thus, after the death of the King, "the realm stood in great
jeopardy a long while, for every lord that was mighty of men made
him strong, and many weened to have been King.
"'He is not here,' said the Archbishop, 'that shall achieve the
sword, but doubt not God will make him known. But this is my
counsel,' said the Archbishop, 'that we let purvey ten knights,
men of good fame, and they to keep the sword.'
"So it was ordained, and then there was made a cry, that every
man should essay that would, for to win the sword. . . .
"Now upon New Year's Day, when the service was done, the barons
rode unto the field, some to joust, and some to tourney, and so
it happened that Sir Ector rode unto the jousts, and with him
rode Sir Kay his son, and young Arthur that was his nourished
brother. So as they rode to the jousts-ward, Sir Kay had lost
his sword for he had left it at his father's lodging, and so he
prayed young Arthur for to ride for his sword.
"'I will well,' said Arthur, and rode fast after the sword, and
when he came home, the lady and all were out to see the jousting.
Then was Arthur wroth and said to himself, 'I will ride to the
churchyard, and take the sword with me that sticketh in the
stone, for my brother Sir Kay shall not be without a sword this
day.' So when he came to the churchyard Sir Arthur alit and tied
his horse to the stile, and so he went to the tent and found no
knights there, for they were at the jousting, and so he handled
the sword by the handles, and lightly and fiercely pulled it out
of the stone, and took his horse and rode his way until he came
to his brother Sir Kay, and delivered him the sword.
"And as soon as Sir Kay saw the sword he wist well it was the
sword of the stone, and he rode to his father Sir Ector and said:
'Sir, lo here is the sword of the stone, wherefore I must be king
of this land.'
"When Sir Ector beheld the sword he returned again and came to
the church, and there they alit all three, and went into the
church. And anon he made Sir Kay to swear upon a book how he
came to that sword.
"'Sir, I will tell you. When I came home for my brother's sword,
I found no body at home to deliver me his sword, and so I thought
my brother Sir Kay should not go swordless, and so I came hither
eagerly and pulled it out of the stone without any pain.'
"'Sir,' said Ector, 'for God will have it so, for there should
never man have drawn out this sword, but he that should be
rightwise king of this land. Now let me see if ye can put the
sword there as it was and pull it out again.'
"'Now essay,' said Sir Ector unto Sir Kay. And anon he pulled at
the sword with all his might, but it would not be.
"And therewithall Sir Ector knelt down to the earth, and Sir
Kay."
For the rest of all the wonderful stories of King Arthur and his
knights you must go to Morte d'Arthur itself. For the language
is so simple and clear that it is a book that you can easily
read, though there are some parts that you will not understand or
like and which you need not read yet.
But of all the books of which we have spoken this is the first
which you could read in the very words in which it was written
down. I do not mean that you could read it as it was first
printed, for the oldest kind of printing was not unlike the
writing used in manuscripts and so seems hard to read now.
Besides which, although nearly all the words Malory uses are
words we still use, the spelling is a little different, and that
makes it more difficult to read.
"With that Sir Arthur turned with his knights, and smote
behind and before, and ever Sir Arthur was in the foremost
press till his horse was slain under him."
*J. Furnivell
BOOKS TO READ
FOUR hundred years after Malory wrote his book, another English
writer told the tales of Arthur anew. This was the poet Alfred,
Lord Tennyson. He told them in poetry.
Tennyson calls his poems the Idylls of the King. Idyll means a
short poem about some simple and beautiful subject. The king
that Tennyson sings of is the great King Arthur.
Tennyson takes his stories, some from The Mabinogion, some from
Malory, some from other books. He has told them in very
beautiful English, and it is the English such as we speak to-day.
He has smoothed away much that strikes us as rough and coarse in
the old stories, and his poems are as different from the old
stories as a polished diamond is different from the stone newly
brought out of the mine. Yet we miss something of strength and
vigor. The Arthur of the Idylls is not the Arthur of The
Mabinogion nor of Malory. Indeed, Tennyson makes him "almost too
good to be true": he is "Ideal manhood closed in real man,
rather than that gray king" of old.
And now I will give you part of the last of the Arthur poems, The
Passing of Arthur, so that you may read it along with Layamon's
account of the hero's death, and see for yourselves the
difference between the two. The Passing of Arthur is written in
blank verse, that is verse which does not rhyme, and which
depends like the old English verse on the accent. Yet they are
not alike.
Then the King bids Sir Bedivere take his sword Excalibur,
But when Sir Bedivere drew Excalibur and saw the jewels of the
hilt shine in the wintry moonlight, he could not find it in his
heart to cast anything so beautiful and precious from him. So,
hiding it among the reeds by the water's edge, he returned to his
master.
But King Arthur well knew that Sir Bedivere had not obeyed him.
"This is a shameful thing for men to lie," he said, and once more
sent the knight to do his bidding.
Again Sir Bedivere went, but again he could not make up his mind
to cast away the sword. "The King is sick, and knows not what he
does," he said to himself. So a second time he hid the sword and
returned.
Then, sorrowful and abashed before the anger of the dying King,
Sir Bedivere turned, and running quickly lest his courage should
fail him, he reached the water's edge and flung the sword far
into the lake.
So Sir Bedivere told the King how truly this time he had cast
away the sword, and how an arm "clothed in white samite, mystic,
wonderful," had caught it and drawn it under the mere. Then at
the King's bidding Sir Bedivere raised Arthur and bore him to the
water's edge.
Then slowly from the shore the barge moved. And Sir Bedivere, as
he saw his master go, was filled with grief and loneliness, for
he only of all the brave King's knights was left. And so he
cried in mourning:-
"'Ah! my Lord Arthur, wither shall I go?
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?
For now I see the true old times are dead.
. . . . . .
And I, the last, go forth companionless,
And the days darken round me, and the years,
Among new men, strange faces, other minds."
Mournfully from the barge Arthur answered and bade him pray, for
"More things are wrought by prayer than the world dreams of," and
so he said farewell,
Long stood Sir Bedivere thinking of all that had come and gone,
watching the barge as it glided silently away, and listening to
the wailing voices,
BOOKS TO READ
Since historical times the land we now call England has been
conquered three times, for we need hardly count the Danish
Invasion. It was conquered by the Romans, it was conquered by
the English, and it was conquered by the Normans. It was only
England that felt the full weight of these conquests. Scotland,
Ireland, and, in part, Wales were left almost untouched. And of
the three it was only the English conquest that had lasting
effects.
It was in much the same way that Britain was a Roman province.
And so our literature was never Latin. There was, indeed, a time
when nearly all our books were written in Latin. But that was
later, and not because Latin was the language of the people, but
because it was the language of the learned and of the monks, who
were the chief people who wrote books.
When, then, after nearly four hundred years the Romans went away,
the people of Britain were still British. But soon another
people came. These were the Anglo-Saxons, the English, who came
from over the sea. And little by little they took possession of
Britain. They drove the old dwellers out until it was only in
the north, in Wales and in Cornwall, that they were to be found.
Then Britain became Angleland or England, and the language was no
longer Celtic, but English. And although there are a few words
in our language which can be traced to the old Celtic, these are
very few. It is thus from Anglo-Saxon, and not from Gaelic or
Cymric, that the language we speak to-day comes.
Yet, as with the old Gaelic and Cymric tales, we have no very old
copy of this tale. But unlike these old tales, we do not find
Beowulf told in different ways in different manuscripts. There
is only one copy of Beowulf, and that was probably written in the
tenth or eleventh century, long years after the English were
firmly settled in the land.
Long ago, in the time when Queen Elizabeth, James I., and Charles
I. sat upon the throne, there lived a learned gentleman called
Sir Robert Bruce Cotton. He was an antiquary. That is, he loved
old things, and he gathered together old books, coins,
manuscripts and other articles, which are of interest because
they help to make us understand the history of bygone days.
Sir Robert Cotton loved books especially, and like many other
book lovers, he was greedy of them. It was said, indeed, that he
often found it hard to return books which had been lent to him,
and that, among others, he had books which really ought to have
belonged to the King.
Sir Robert's library soon became famous, and many scholars came
to read there, for Sir Robert was very kind in allowing other
people to use his books. But twice his library was taken from
him, because it was said that it contained things which were
dangerous for people to know, and that he allowed the enemies of
the King to use it. That was in the days of Charles I., and
those were troublous times.
The second time that his library was taken from him, Sir Robert
died, but it was given back to his son, and many years later his
great-great-grandson gave it to the nation.
In 1731 the house in which the library was took fire, and more
than a hundred books were burned, some being partly and some
quite destroyed. Among those that were partly destroyed was
Beowulf. But no one cared very much, for no one had read the
book or knew anything about it.
When the Danish gentleman made his copy of Beowulf, he found the
edges of the book so charred by fire that they broke away with
the slightest touch. No one thought of mending the leaves, and
as years went on they fell to pieces more and more. But at last
some one woke up to the fact that this half-burned book was a
great treasure. Then it was carefully mended, and thus kept from
wasting more.
And now, having spoken about the book and its adventures, let us
in the next chapter speak about the story. As usual, I will give
part of it in the words of the original, translated, of course,
into modern English. You can always tell what is from the
original by the quotation marks, if by nothing else.
Chapter XI THE STORY OF BEOWULF
HROTHGAR, King of the Spear Danes, was a mighty man in war, and
when he had fought and conquered much, he bethought him that he
would build a great and splendid hall, wherein he might feast and
be glad with his people.
And so it was done. And when the hall was built, there night by
night the thanes gathered and rejoiced with their King; and
there, when the feast was over, they lay them down to sleep.
Within the hall all was gladness, but without on the lone
moorland there stalked a grim monster, named Grendel, whose dark
heart was filled with anger and hate. To him the sound of song
and laughter was deep pain, and he was fain to end it.
"He, the Grendel, set off then after night was come to seek the
lofty house, to see how the Ring Danes had ordered it after the
service of beer. He found them therein, a troup of nobles
sleeping after the feast. They knew not sorrow, the wretchedness
of men, they knew not aught of misfortune.
"The grim and greedy one was soon prepared, savage and fierce,
and in sleep he seized upon thirty of the thanes, and thence he
again departed exulting in his prey, to go home with the carcases
of the slain, to reach his own dwelling.
But in spite of all their grief and horror, when night came the
thanes again lay down to rest in the great hall. And there again
the monster returned and slew yet more thanes, so that in horror
all forsook the hall, and for twelve long years none abode in it
after the setting of the sun.
And now far across the sea a brave man of the Goths, Beowulf by
name, heard of the doings of Grendel, and he made up his mind to
come to the aid of King Hrothgar.
"He commanded to make ready for him a good ship; quoth he, he
would seek the war-king over the swan's path; the renowned prince
since he had need of men.
"The time passed on, the ship was on the waves, the boat beneath
a mountain, the ready warriors stept upon the prow. The men bore
into the bosom of the bark bright ornaments, their ready warlike
appointments.
"The men shoved forth the bounden wood, the men upon the journey
they desired.
"Then quickly the people of the Westerns stepped upon the plain.
They tied the sea-wood, they let down their shirts of mail, their
war-weeds. They thanked God because that the waves had been easy
to them."
"Then under veils of mist came Grendel from the moor; he bare
God's anger. The criminal meant to entrap some one of the race
of men in the high hall. He went under the welkin, until he saw
most clearly the wine hall, the treasure house of men, variegated
with vessels. That was not the first time that he had sought
Hrothgar's home. Never he, in all his life before or since found
bolder men keepers of the hall.
"Angry of mood he went, from his eyes, likest to fire, stood out
a hideous light. He saw within the house many a warrior
sleeping, a peaceful band together. Then his mood laughed. The
foul wretch meant to divide, ere day came, the life of each from
his body."
Then began a terrible combat. The hall echoed with cries and
sounds of clashing steel. The Goths awoke, joining in the fight,
but all their swords were of no avail against the ogre. With his
bare hands alone Beowulf fought, and thought to kill the monster.
But Grendel escaped, though wounded to death indeed, and leaving
his hand, arm, and shoulder behind in Beowulf's grip.
"Then was there a cry in Heorot. Then was the prudent king, the
hoary warrior, sad of mood, when he learned that his princely
thane, the dearest to him, no longer lived. Quickly was Beowulf
fetched to the bower, the man happy in victory, at break of day."
And when Beowulf heard the mournful tale he comforted the King
with brave and kindly words, and quickly he set forth to the
dreadful mere, the dwelling of the water-witch, Grendel's mother.
And here he plunged in ready to fight.
"Soon did she, who thirsting for gore, grim and greedy, for a
hundred years had held the circuit of the waves, discover that
some one of men, some strange being, was trying from above the
land. She grappled then towards him, she seized the warrior in
her foul claws."
Then beneath the waves was there a fierce struggle, but Beowulf
in the end conquered. The water-witch was slain, and rejoicing,
the hero returned to Hrothgar.
Now indeed had peace come to the Danes, and loaded with thanks
and rewards, Beowulf returned homeward.
Many years passed. Beowulf himself became king in his own land,
and for fifty years he ruled well, and kept his folk in peace.
Then it fell that a fearful Fire-Dragon wasted all the land, and
Beowulf, mindful of his deeds of old, set forth to slay him.
"Then greeted he every one of the men, the bold helm bearer
greeted his dear comrades for the last time. I would not bear
sword or weapon against the worm if I knew how else I might
proudly grapple with the wretch, as I of old with Grendel did.
But I ween this war fire is hot, fierce and poisonous; therefore
have I on me shield and byrnie. . . . Then did the famous warrior
arise beside his shield, hard under helmet he bare the sword-
shirt, under the cliffs of stone, he trusted in the strength of
one man; nor is such an expedition for a coward."
Fiercely then did the battle rage between hero and dragon. But
Beowulf's sword failed him in his need, and it was like to go ill
with him. Then, when his thanes who watched saw that, fear fell
upon them, and they fled. One only, Wiglaf was his name, would
not forsake his liege lord. Seizing his shield and drawing his
sword, he cried, "Come, let us go to him, let us help our
chieftain, although the grim terror of fire be hot."
But none would follow him, so alone he went: "through the fatal
smoke he bare his war helmet to the assistance of his lord."
Fierce was the fight and long. But at length the dragon lay
dead. Beowulf had conquered, but in conquering he had received
his death wound. And there, by the wild seashore, he died. And
there a sorrowing people buried him.
"For him, then did the people of the Ge�ts prepare upon the earth
a funeral pile, strong, hung round with helmets, with war boards
and bright byrnies as he had requested. Weeping, the heroes laid
down in the midst their dear lord.
"Then began the warriors to awake upon the hill the mightiest of
bale-fires. The wood smoke rose aloft, dark from the foe of
wood. Noisily it went mingled with weeping. . . .
"The people of the Westerns wrought then a mound over the sea:
it was high and broad, easy to behold by the sailors over the
waves, and during ten days they built up the beacon of the war-
renowned, the mightiest of fires. . . . Then round the mound rode
a troupe of beasts of war, of nobles, twelve in all. They would
speak about their King, they would call him to mind. They
praised his valor, and his deeds of bravery they judged with
praise, even as it is fitting that a man should extol his
friendly lord, should love him in his soul, when he must depart
from the body to become of naught.
"Thus the people of the Ge�ts, his hearth comrades, mourned their
dear lord. They said that he was of the kings of the world, the
mildest and gentlest of men, the most gracious to his people, and
the most jealous of glory."
BOOKS TO READ
ALTHOUGH there are lines of Beowulf which seem to show that the
writer of the poem was a Christian, they must have been added by
some one who copied or retold the story long after the Saxons had
come to Britain, for the poet who first told the tale must have
been a heathen, as all the Saxons were.
The Britons were Christian, for they had learned the story of
Christ from the Romans. But when the Saxons conquered the land
they robbed and ruined the churches, the Christian priests were
slain or driven forth, and once more the land became heathen.
Then, after many years had passed, the story of Christ was again
brought to England. This time it came from Ireland. It was
brought from there by St. Columba, who built a church and founded
a monastery on the island of Iona. And from there his eager,
wandering priests carried the story far and wide, northward to
the fortress of the Pictish kings, and southward to the wild
Saxons who dwelt amid the hills and uplands of Northumbria.
For thirty years and more St. Columba, the passionate and tender,
taught and labored. Many monasteries were founded which became,
as it were, the lighthouses of learning and religion. There the
monks and priests lived, and from them as centers they traveled
out in all directions teaching the heathen. And when at last St.
Columba closed his tired eyes and folded his weary hands, there
were many more to carry on his work.
Then, also, from Rome, as once before, the story of Christ was
brought. In 597, the year in which St. Columba died, St.
Augustine landed with his forty followers. They, too, in time
reached Northumbria; so, side by side, Roman and Celt spoke the
message of peace on earth, goodwill toward men.
This man was called Caedmon. He could not sing, and although he
loved to listen to the songs of others, "whenever he saw the harp
come near him," we are told, "he arose out of shame from the
feast and went home to his house." Away from the bright
firelight out into the lonely dark he crept with bent head and
lagging steps. Perhaps he would stand a moment outside the door
beneath the starlight and listen to the thunder of the waves and
the shriek of the winds. And as he felt in his heart all the
beauty and wonder of the world, the glory and the might of the
sea and sky, he would ask in dumb pain why, when he could feel it
touch his heart, he could not also sing of the beauty and wonder,
glory and might. [68]
One night Caedmon crept away as usual, and went "out of the house
where the entertainment was, to the stable, where he had to take
care of the horses that night. He there composed himself to
rest. A person appeared to him then in a dream and, calling him
by name, said, 'Caedmon, sing some song to me.'
"He answered, 'I cannot sing; for that was the reason why I left
the entertainment and retired to this place, because I cannot
sing.'
"The other who talked to him replied, 'However, you shall sing.'
"This," says the old historian, who tells the story in Latin, "is
the sense, but not the words in order as he sang them in his
sleep. For verses, though never so well composed, cannot be
literally (that is word for word) translated out of one language
into another without losing much of their beauty and loftiness."*
So the simple farm laborer, who had no learning of any kind, sang
while the learned and grave men listened. And he who was wont to
creep away in dumb shame, fearing the laughter of his fellows,
sang now with such beauty and sweetness that they were all of one
mind, saying that the Lord Himself had, of His heavenly grace,
given to Caedmon this new power.
Then the Abbess saw that, indeed, the grace of God had come upon
the man. She made him at once give up the life of a servant
which he had been leading, and bade him become a monk. Caedmon
gladly did her bidding, and when he had been received among them,
his brother monks taught to him all the Bible stories.
But Caedmon could neither read nor write, nor is it at all likely
that he ever learned to do either even after he became a monk,
for we are told that "he was well advanced in years" before his
great gift of song came to him. It is quite certain that he
could not read Latin, so that all that he put into verse had to
be taught to him by some more learned brother. And some one,
too, must have written down the verses which Caedmon sang.
"He sang the creation of the world, the origin of man, and all
the history of Genesis; and made many verses on the departure of
the children of Israel out of Egypt, and their entering into the
land of promise, with many other histories from holy writ."
As has been said, there are lines in Beowulf which seem to have
been written by a Christian. But all that is Christian in it is
merely of the outside; it could easily be taken away, and the
poem would remain perfect. The whole feeling of the poem is not
Christian, but pagan. So it would seem that what is Christian in
it has been added long after the poem was first made, yet added
before the people had forgotten their pagan ways.
For very long after they became Christian the Saxons kept their
old pagan ways of thought, and Caedmon, when he came to sing of
holy things, sang as a minstrel might. To him Abraham and Moses,
and all the holy men of old, were like the warrior chieftains
whom he knew and of whom the minstrels sang. And God to him was
but the greatest of these warriors. He is "Heaven's Chief," "the
Great Prince." The clash and clang of sword and trumpet calls
are heard "amid the grim clash of helms." War filled the
greatest half of life. All history, all poetry were bound up in
it. Caedmon sang of what he saw, of what he knew. He was
Christian, he had learned the lesson of peace on earth, but he
lived amid the clash of arms and sang them.
Chapter XIII HOW CAEDMON SANG, AND HOW HE FELL ONCE MORE ON SILENCE
This story of the war in heaven and of the angels' fall is not in
the Bible. It is not to be found either in any of the Latin
books which the monks of Whitby may have had. The story did not
come from Rome, but from the East. How, then, did Caedmon hear
it?
Then after all the fierce clash of battle come a few lines which
seem like peace after war, quiet after storm.
Then God grieved at the empty spaces in heaven from whence the
wicked angels had been driven forth. And that they might at last
be filled again, he made the world and placed a man and woman
there. This to the chief of the fallen angels was grief and
pain, and his heart boiled within him in anger.
"Heaven is lost to us," he cried; "but now that we may not have
it, let us so act that it shall be lost to them also. Let us
make them disobey God,
"Then with them will he be wroth of mind,
Will cast them from his favor,
Then shall they seek this hell
And these grim depths,
Then may we have them to ourselves as vassals,
The children of men in this fast durance."
Then Satan asks who will help him to tempt mankind to do wrong.
"If to any followers I princely treasure gave of old while we in
that good realm happy sate," let him my gift repay, let him now
aid me.
So one of Satan's followers made himself ready. "On his head the
chief his helmet set," and he, "wheeled up from thence, departed
through the doors of hell lionlike in air, in hostile mood,
dashed the fire aside, with a fiend's power."
Caedmon next tells how the fiend tempted first the man and then
the woman with guileful lies to eat of the fruit which had been
forbidden to them, and how Eve yielded to him. And having eaten
of the forbidden fruit, Eve urged Adam too to eat, for it seemed
to her that a fair new life was open to her. "I see God's
angels," she said,
"Encompass him
With feathery wings
Of all folk greatest,
Of bands most joyous.
I can hear from far
And so widely see,
Through the whole world,
Over the broad creation.
I can the joy of the firmament
Hear in heaven.
It became light to me in mind
From without and within
After the fruit I tasted."
And thus, urged by Eve, Adam too ate of the forbidden fruit, and
the man and woman were driven out of the Happy Garden, and the
curse fell upon them because of their disobedience.
So they went forth "into a narrower life." Yet there was left to
them "the roof adorned with holy stars, and earth to them her
ample riches gave."
A second time the dove is sent forth, and this is how the poet
tells of it:--
"Then the chief of seamen knew that gladness was at hand, and he
sent forth after three weeks the wild dove who came not back
again; for she saw the land of the greening trees. The happy
creature, all rejoicing, would no longer of the ark, for she
needed it no more."*
*Stopford Brooke
Besides Genesis many other poems were thought at one time to have
been made by Caedmon. The chief of these are Exodus and Daniel.
They are all in an old book, called the Junian MS., from the name
of the man, Francis Dujon, who first published them. The MS. was
found among some other old books in Trinity College, Dublin, and
given to Francis Dujon. He published the poems in 1655, and it
is from that time that we date our knowledge of Caedmon.
Wise men tell us that Caedmon could not have made any of these
poems, not even the Genesis of which you have been reading. But
if Caedmon did not make these very poems, he made others like
them which have been lost. It was he who first showed the way,
and other poets followed.
For some days he had been ill, but able still to walk and talk.
But one night, feeling that the end of life for him was near, he
asked the brothers to give to him for the last time the
Eucharist, or sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
"They answered, 'What need of the Eucharist? for you are not
likely to die, since you talk so merrily with us, as if you were
in perfect health.'
"Having received the same into his hand, he asked whether they
were all in charity with him, and without any enmity or rancour.
"They answered that they were all in perfect charity and free
from anger; and in their turn asked him whether he was in the
same mind towards them.
Thus his life, which had been begun in silence, ended also in
silence, with just a few singing years between.
When Bede was eight years old Caedmon died. And although the
little boy had never met the great, but humble poet, he must have
heard of him, and it is from Bede's history that we learn all
that we know of Caedmon.
*C. Plummer.
Once, when Bede was still a boy, a fearful plague swept the land,
"killing and destroying a great multitude of men." In the
monastery of Jarrow all who could read, or preach, or sing were
killed by it. Only the Abbot himself and a little lad were left.
The Abbot loved services and the praises of the church. His
heart was heavy with grief and mourning for the loss of his
friends; it was heavy, too, with the thought that the services of
his church could no longer be made beautiful with song.
For a few days the Abbot read the services all alone, but at the
end of a week he could no longer bear the lack of singing, so
calling the little lad he bade him to help him and to chant the
responses.
And thus night and morning the sound of prayer and praise rose
from the deserted chapel until the force of the plague had spent
itself, and it was once more possible to find men to take the
places of those singers who had died.
So the years passed on until, when Bede was thirty years of age,
he became a priest. He might have been made an abbot had he
wished. But he refused to be taken away from his beloved books.
"The office," he said, "demands household care, and household
care brings with it distraction of mind, hindering the pursuit of
learning."*
There were others who wrote history before Bede, but he was
perhaps the first who wrote history in the right spirit. He did
not write in order to make a good minstrel's tale. He tried to
tell the truth. He was careful as to where he got his facts, and
careful how he used them. So those who came after him could
trust him. Bede's History, you remember, was one of the books
which Layamon used when he wrote his Brut, and in it we find many
of the stories of early British history which have grown familiar
to us.
It is in this book that we find the story of how Gregory saw the
pretty children in the Roman slave market, and of how, for love
of their fair faces, he sent Augustine to teach the heathen
Saxons about Christ. There are, too, many stories in it of how
the Saxons became Christian. One of the most interesting,
perhaps, is about Edwin, King of Northumbria. Edwin had married
a Christian princess, Ethelberga, sister of Eadbald, King of
Kent. Eadbald was, at first, unwilling that his sister should
marry a pagan king. But Edwin promised that he would not try to
turn her from her religion, and that she and all who came with
her should be allowed to worship what god they chose.
Others of the King's wise men and counselors spoke, and they all
spoke to the same end. Coifi then said that he would hear yet
more of what Paulinus had to tell. So Paulinus rose from his
place and told the people more of the story of Christ. And after
listening attentively for some time Coifi again cried out, "'I
advise, O King, that we instantly abjure and set fire to those
temples and altars which we have consecrated without reaping any
benefit from them.'
One of the reasons why I have chosen this story out of Bede's
History is because it contains the picture of the sparrow
flitting through the firelit room. Out of the dark and cold it
comes into the light and warmth for a moment, and then vanishes
into the dark and cold once more.
The Saxon who more than thirteen hundred years ago made that
word-picture was a poet. He did not know it, perhaps, he was
only speaking of what he had often seen, telling in simple words
of something that happened almost every day, and yet he has given
us a picture which we cannot forget, and has made our literature
by so much the richer. He has told us of something, too, which
helps us to realize the rough life our forefathers lived. Even
in the king's palace the windows were without glass, the doors
stood open to let out the smoke from "the good fire in the
midst," for there were no chimneys, or at best but a hole in the
roof to serve as one. The doors stood open, even though "the
storms of snow and rain prevailed abroad," and in spite of the
good fire, it must have been comfortless enough. Yet many a
stray bird might well be drawn thither by the light and warmth.
Bede lived a peaceful, busy life, and when he came to die his end
was peaceful too, and his work ceased only with his death. One
of his pupils, writing to a friend, tells of these last hours.*
For some weeks in the bright springtime of 735 Bede had been ill,
yet "cheerful and rejoicing, giving thanks to almighty God every
day and night, yea every hour." Daily, too, he continued to give
lessons to his pupils, and the rest of the time he spent in
singing psalms. "I can with truth declare that I never saw with
my eyes, or heard with my ears, any one return thanks so
unceasingly to the living God," says the letter. "During these
days he labored to compose two works well worthy to be remembered
besides the lessons we had from him, and singing of psalms: that
is, he translated the Gospel of St. John as far as the words,
'But what are these among so many,' into our own tongue for the
benefit of the church, and some collections out of the Book of
Notes of Bishop Isidor.
"When the Tuesday before the Ascension of our Lord came, he began
to suffer still more in his health. But he passed all that day
and dictated cheerfully, and now and then among other things
said, 'Go on quickly, I know not how long I shall hold out, and
whether my maker will not soon take me away.'
"There was one of us with him who said to him, 'Most dear Master,
there is still one chapter wanting. Do you think it troublesome
to be asked any more questions?'
"He answered, 'It is no trouble. Take your pen and make ready
and write fast. . . .'
"Then the same boy said once more, 'Dear Master, there is yet one
sentence not written.'
And sitting upon the pavement of his little cell, he sang, "Glory
be to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost." "When
he had named the Holy Ghost he breathed his last, and departed to
the heavenly kingdom."
So died Bede, surnamed the Venerable.
There are two or three stories about how Bede came to be given
his surname. One tells how a young monk was set to write some
lines of poetry to be put upon the tomb where his master was
buried. He tried hard, but the verse would not come right. He
could not get the proper number of syllables in his lines.
he wrote. But he could not find an adjective that would make the
line the right length, try how he might. At last, wearied out,
he fell asleep over his task.
Then, as he slept, an angel bent down, and taking the pen from
the monk's tired fingers, wrote the words, "the Venerable," so
that the line ran, "In this grave lie the bones of the Venerable
Bede." And thus, for all time, our first great historian is
known as The Venerable Bede.
BOOK TO READ
WHILE Caedmon sang his English lays and Bede wrote his Latin
books, Northumbria had grown into a center, not only of English
learning, but of learning for western Europe. The abbots of
Jarrow and Wearmouth made journeys to Rome and brought back with
them precious MSS. for the monastery libraries. Scholars from
all parts of Europe came to visit the Northumbrian monasteries,
or sent thither for teachers.
But before many years had passed all that was changed. Times of
war and trouble were not yet over for England. Once again
heathen hordes fell upon our shores. The Danes, fierce and
lawless, carrying sword and firebrand wherever they passed,
leaving death and ruin in their track, surged over the land. The
monasteries were ruined, the scholars were scattered. A life of
peaceful study was no longer possible, the learning of two
hundred years was swept away, the lamp of knowledge lit by the
monks grew dim and flickered out.
But when sixty years or more had passed, a king arose who crushed
the Danish power, and who once more lit that lamp. This king was
Alfred the Great.
By "this side of the Humber" Alfred means the south side, for now
the center of learning was no longer Northumbria, but Wessex.
"Year 190.
"Year 199.
And so on it goes, and every now and again, among entries which
seem to us of little or no importance, we learn something that
throws great light on our past history. And when we come to the
time of Alfred's reign the entries are much more full. From the
Chronicle we learn a great deal about his wars with the Danes,
and of how he fought them both by land and by sea.
Alfred died after having reigned for nearly thirty years. Much
that he had done seemed to die with him, for once again the Danes
descended upon our coasts. Once again they conquered, and Canute
the Dane became King of England. But the English spirit was
strong, and the Danish invasion has left scarcely a trace upon
our language. Nor did the Danish power last long, for in 1042 we
had in Edward the Confessor an English king once more. But he
was English only in name. In truth he was more than half French,
and under him French forces began already to work on our
literature. A few years later that French force became
overwhelming, for in 1066 William of Normandy came to our shores,
and with his coming it seemed for a time as if the life of
English literature was to be crushed out forever. Only by the
Chronicle were both prose and poetry kept alive in the English
tongue. And it is to Alfred the Great that we owe this slender
thread which binds our English literature of to-day with the
literature of a thousand years ago.
Chapter XVI WHEN ENGLISH SLEPT
One thing the Normans had brought was a liking for history, and
soon there sprang up a whole race of chroniclers. They, like
Bede, were monks and priests. They lived in monasteries, and
wrote in Latin. One after another they wrote, and when one laid
down his pen, another took it up. Some of these chroniclers were
mere painstaking men who noted facts and dates with care. But
others were true writers of literature, who told their tales in
vivid, stirring words, so that they make these times live again
for us. The names of some of the best of these chroniclers are
Eadmer, Orderic Vitalis, and William of Malmesbury.
*William of Newbury.
The Norman came with sword in hand, bringing in his train the
Latin-writing chroniclers. But he did not bring these alone. He
brought minstrels also. Besides the quiet monks who sat in their
little cells, or in the pleasant cloisters, writing the history
of the times, there were the light-hearted minstrels who roamed
the land with harp and song.
The man who struck the first blow at Hastings was a minstrel who,
as he rode against the English, sang. And the song he sang was
of Roland, the great champion of Charlemagne. The Roland story
is to France what the Arthur story is to us. And it shows,
perhaps, the strength of English patriotic spirit that that story
never took hold of English minds. Some few tales there are told
of Roland in English, but they are few indeed, in comparison with
the many that are told of Arthur.
The Norman, however, who did not readily invent new tales, was
very good at taking and making his own the tales of others. So,
even as he conquered England by the sword, he conquered our
literature too. For the stories of Arthur were told in French
before they came back to us in English. It was the same with
other tales, and many of our old stories have come down to us,
not through their English originals, but through the French. For
the years after the Conquest are the poorest in English
Literature.
From the Conquest until Layamon wrote his Brut, there was no
English literature worthy of the name. Had we not already spoken
of Layamon out of true order in following the story of Arthur, it
is here that we should speak of him and of his book, The Brut.
So, perhaps, it would be well to go back and read chapter vii.,
and then we must go on to the Metrical Romances.
The three hundred years from 1200 to 1500 were the years of the
Metrical Romances. Metrical means written in verse. Romance
meant at first the languages made from the Latin tongue, such as
French or Spanish. After a time the word Romance was used to
mean a story told in any Romance language. But now we use it to
mean any story of strange and wonderful adventures, especially
when the most thrilling adventures happen to the hero and
heroine.
The Norman minstrels, then, took English tales and made them into
romances. But when the English began once more to write, they
turned these romances back again into English. We still call
them romances, although they are now written in English.
Some of these tales came to us, no doubt, from the Danes. They
were brought from over the sea by the fierce Northmen, who were,
after all, akin to the Normans. The Normans made them into
French stories, and the English turned them back into English.
The poem begins with a few lines which seem meant to call the
people together to listen:--
If you will compare this poetry with that of Layamon, you will
see that there is something in it quite different from his. This
no longer rests, as that does, upon accent and alliteration, but
upon rhyme. The English, too, in which it is written, is much
more like the English of to-day. For Havelok was written perhaps
a hundred years after Layamon's Brut. These are the first lines
as they are in the MS.:--
That, you see, except for curious spelling, is not very unlike
our English of to-day, although it is fair to tell you that all
the lines are not so easy to understand as these are.
THE good king of whom we read in the last chapter was called
Athelwold, and the poet tells us that there were happy days in
England while he reigned. But at length he became sick unto
death. Then was he sore grieved, because he had no child to sit
upon the throne after him save a maiden very fair. But so young
was she that she could neither "go on foot nor speak with mouth."
So, in this grief and trouble, the King wrote to all his nobles,
"from Roxburgh all unto Dover," bidding them come to him.
And all who had the writings came to the King, where he lay at
Winchester. Then, when they were all come, Athelwold prayed them
to be faithful to the young Princess, and to choose one of
themselves to guard her until she was of age to rule.
So, happy in thought that his daughter should reign after him in
peace, the King died, and there was great sorrow and mourning
throughout the land. But the people remained at peace, for the
Earl ruled well and wisely.
Meanwhile the Princess Goldboru grew daily more and more fair.
And when Earl Godrich saw how fair and noble she became, he
sighed and asked himself:--
Now it befell that at this time there was a right good king in
Denmark. He had a son named Havelok and two fair daughters. And
feeling death come upon him, he left his children in the care of
his dear friend Godard, and so died.
But no sooner was the King in his grave than the false Godard
took Havelok and his two sisters and thrust them into a dungeon.
After a time the traitor went to the tower where the children
were, and there he slew the two little girls. But the boy
Havelok he spared.
So the wicked Earl spared the lad for the time. But he did not
mean that he should live. Anon he called a fisherman to him and
said:--
But when the moon rose, and Grim made ready to drown the child,
his wife saw a great light come from the sack. And opening it,
they found therein the prince. Then they resolved, instead of
drowning him, to save and nourish him as their own child. But
they resolved also to hide the truth from the Earl.
Then seeing that there was no help for it, and that he must
either be wedded or hanged, Havelok consented to marry Goldboru.
So the Princess was brought, "the fairest woman under the moon."
And she, sore afraid at the anger and threats of Godrich, durst
not do aught to oppose the wedding. So were they "espoused fair
and well" by the Archbishop of York, and Havelok took his bride
home to Grimsby.
You may be sure that Havelok, who was so strong and yet so
gentle, was kind to his beautiful young wife. But Goldboru was
unhappy, for she could not forget the disgrace that had come upon
her. She could not forget that she was a princess, and that she
had been forced to wed a low-born kitchen knave. But one night,
as she lay in bed weeping, an angel appeared to her and bade her
sorrow no more, for it was no scullion that she had wed, but a
king's son. So Goldboru was comforted.
And of all that afterward befell Havelok and Goldboru, of how
they went to Denmark and overcame the traitor there, and received
the kingdom; and of how they returned again to England, and of
how Godrich was punished, you must read for yourselves in the
book of Havelok the Dane. But this one thing more I will tell
you, that Havelok and Goldboru lived happily together until they
died. They loved each other so tenderly that they were never
angry with each other. They had fifteen children, and all the
sons became kings and all the daughters became queens.
BOOKS TO READ
The ballads were not made for grand folk. They were not made to
be sung in courts and halls. They were made for the common
people, and sometimes at least they were made by them. They were
meant to be sung, and sung out of doors. For in those days the
houses of all but the great were very comfortless. They were
small and dark and full of smoke. It was little wonder, then,
that people lived out of doors as much as they could, and that
all their amusements were out of doors. And so it comes about
that many of the ballads have an out-of-door feeling about them.
And so true is this, that ballads which have never been written
down, but which are heard only in out-of-the-way places, sung or
said by people who have never learned to read, have really more
of the old-time feeling about them than many of those which we
find in books.
The last time we heard of monks and priests they were the friends
of the people, doing their best to teach them and make them
happy. Now we find that they are looked upon as enemies. And
the monasteries, which at the beginning had been like lamps of
light set in a dark country, had themselves become centers of
darkness and idleness.
But although Robin fought against the clergy, the friars and
monks who did wrong, he did not fight against religion.
The great idea of the Robin Hood ballads is the victory of the
poor and oppressed over the rich and powerful, the triumph of the
lawless over the law-givers. Because of this, and because we
like Robin much better than the Sheriff of Nottingham, his chief
enemy, we are not to think that the poor were always right and
the rulers always wrong. There were many good men among the
despised monks and friars, bishops and archbishops. But there
were, too, many evils in the land, and some of the laws pressed
sorely on the people. Yet they were never without a voice.
The Robin Hood ballads are full of humor; they are full, too, of
English outdoor life, of hunting and fighting.
Of quite another style is the ballad of Sir Patrick Spens. That
takes us away from the green, leafy woods and dells of England to
the wild, rocky coast of Scotland. It takes us from the singing
of birds to the roar of the waves. The story goes that the King
wanted a good sailor to sail across the sea. Then an old knight
says to him that the best sailor that ever sailed the sea is Sir
Patrick Spens.
"Who has done me this evil deed?" he cries, "to send me out to
sea in such weather?"
Sir Patrick is very unwilling to go. But the King has commanded,
so he and his men set forth. A great storm comes upon them and
the ship is wrecked. All the men are drowned, and the ladies who
sit at home waiting their husbands' return wait in vain.
There are many versions of this ballad, but I give you here one
of the shortest and perhaps the most beautiful.
"The king sits in Dumferling toune
Drinking the blude reid wine:
'O whar will I get a guid sailor,
To sail this schip of mine?'
Is that not pretty? Can you not hear the cuckoo call, even
though the lamps may be lit and the winter wind be shrill
without?
BOOKS TO READ
DURING the long years after the Norman Conquest when English was
a despised language, it became broken up into many dialects. But
as time went on and English became once more the language of the
educated as well as of the uneducated, there arose a cultured
English, which became the language which we speak to-day.
In the time of Edward III England was England again, and the
rulers were English both in heart and in name. But England was
no longer a country apart, she was no longer a lonely sea-girt
island, but had taken her place among the great countries of
Europe. For the reign of Edward III was a brilliant one. The
knightly, chivalrous King set his country high among the
countries of Europe. Men made songs and sang of his victories,
of Cre�y and of Calais, and France bowed the knee to England.
But the wars and triumphs of the King pressed hardly on the
people of England, and ere his reign was over misery, pestilence,
and famine filled the land.
So many men had been killed in Edward's French and Scottish wars
that there were too few left to till the land. Then came a
terrible disease called the Black Death, slaying young and old,
rich and poor, until nearly half the people in the land were
dead.
Then fewer still were left to do the work of the farms. Cattle
and sheep strayed where they would, for there were none to tend
them. Corn ripened and rotted in the fields, for there were none
to gather it. Food grew dear as workers grew scarce. Then the
field laborers who were left began to demand larger wages. Many
of these laborers were little more than slaves, and their masters
refused to pay them better. Then some left their homes and went
away to seek new masters who would be willing to pay more, while
others took to a life of wandering beggary.
The owners of the land had thought that they should be ruined did
they pay the great wages demanded of them. Now they saw that
they should be ruined quite as much if they could find no one at
all to do the work. So laws were made forcing men to work for
the same wages they had received before the plague, and
forbidding them to leave the towns and villages in which they had
been used to live. If they disobeyed they were imprisoned and
punished.
Yet these new laws were broken again and again, because bread had
now become so dear that it was impossible for men to live on as
little as they had done before. Still many masters tried to
enforce the law, and the land was soon filled not only with
hunger and misery, but with a fierce class hatred between master
and man. It was the beginning of a long and bitter struggle, and
as the cry of the poor grew louder and louder, the hatred and
spirit of revolt grew fiercer.
But the great of the land seemed little touched by the sorrows of
the people. While they starved and died, the King, surrounded by
a glittering court, gave splendid feasts and tournaments. He
built fair palaces and chapels, founded a new round table, and
thought to make the glorious days of Arthur live again.
And the great among the clergy cared as little for the poor as
did the great among the nobles. Many of them had become selfish
and worldly, some of them wicked, though of course there were
many good men left among them too.
The Church was wealthy but the powerful priests kept that wealth
in their own hands, and many of the country clergy were almost as
miserably poor as the people whom they taught. And it was
through one of these poor priests, named William Langland, that
the sorrows of the people found a voice.
Perhaps Langland's friends saw that he was clever, and hoped that
he might become one of the great ones in the Church. In those
days (the Middle Ages they were called) there was no sharp line
dividing the priests from the people. The one shaded off into
the other, as it were. There were many who wore long gowns and
shaved their heads, who yet were not priests. They were called
clerks, and for a sum of money, often very small, they helped to
sing masses for the souls of the dead, and performed other
offices in connection with the services of the Church. They were
bound by no vows and were allowed to marry, but of course could
never hope to be powerful. Such was Langland; he married and
always remained a poor "clerk."
But if Langland did not rise high in the Church, he made himself
famous in another way, for he wrote Piers the Ploughman. This is
a great book. There is no other written during the fourteenth
century, in which we see so clearly the life of the people of the
time.
The poem is divided into parts. The first part is The Vision of
Piers the Ploughman, the second is The Vision Concerning Do Well,
Do Bet, Do Best.
If you will look back you will see that this poetry is very much
more like Layamon's than like the poetry of Havelok the Dane.
Although people had, for many years, been writing rhyming verse,
Langland has, you see, gone back to the old alliterative poetry.
Perhaps it was that, living far away in the country, Langland had
written his poem before he had heard of the new kind of rhyming
verses, for news traveled slowly in those days.
Two hundred years later, when The Vision of Piers the Ploughman
was first printed, the printer in his preface explained
alliterative verse very well. "Langland wrote altogether in
metre," he says, "but not after the manner of our rimers that
write nowadays (for his verses end not alike), but the nature of
his metre is to have three words, at the least, in every verse
which begin with some one letter. As for example the first two
verses of the book run upon 's,' as thus:
This thing being noted, the metre shall be very pleasant to read.
The English is according to the time it was written in, and the
sense somewhat dark, but not so hard but that it may be
understood of such as will not stick to break the shell of the
nut for the kernel's sake."
This printer also says in his preface that the book was first
written in the time of King Edward III, "In whose time it pleased
God to open the eyes of many to see his truth, giving them
boldness of heart to open their mouths and cry out against the
works of darkness. . . . There is no manner of vice that reigneth
in any estate of man which this writer hath not godly, learnedly,
and wittily rebuked."*
I hope that you will be among those who will not "stick to break
the shell of the nut for the kernel's sake," and that although
the "sense be somewhat dark" you will some day read the book for
yourselves. Meantime in the next chapter I will tell you a
little more about it.
But some are gluttons and others think only of fine clothes.
Some pray and others jest. There are rogues and knaves here,
friars and priests, barons and burgesses, bakers and butchers,
tailors and tanners, masons and miners, and folk of many other
crafts. Indeed, the field is the world. It lies between a tower
and a dungeon. The tower is God, the dungeon is the dwelling of
the Evil One.
"Truth is best in all things," she said at length. "I have told
thee now what Truth is, and may no longer linger." And so she
made ready to go. But the dreamer kneeled on his knees and
prayed her stay yet a while to teach him to know Falsehood also,
as well as Truth.
Left alone the dreamer watched the preparations for the wedding.
The Earldom of Envy, the Kingdom of Covetousness, the Isle of
Usury were granted as marriage gifts to the pair. But Theology
was angry. He would not permit the wedding to take place. "Ere
this wedding be wrought, woe betide thee," he cried. "Meed is
wealthy; I know it. God grant us to give her unto whom Truth
wills. But thou hast bound her fast to Falseness. Meed is
gently born. Lead her therefore to London, and there see if the
law allows this wedding."
So, listening to the advice of Theology, all the company rode off
to London, Guile leading the way.
But Soothness pricked on his palfrey and passed them all and came
to the King's court, where he told Conscience all about the
matter, and Conscience told the King.
Then quoth the King, "If I might catch False and Flattery or any
of their masters, I would avenge me on the wretches that work so
ill, and would hang them by the neck and all that them abet."
But the King called a Clerk and told him to comfort Meed. So
Justice soon hurried to her bower to comfort her kindly, and many
others followed him. Meed thanked them all and "gave them cups
of clean gold and pieces of silver, rings with rubies and riches
enough." And pretending to be sorry for all that she had done
amiss, Meed confessed her sins and was forgiven.
The King then, believing that she was really sorry, wished to
marry her to Conscience. But Conscience would not have her, for
he knew that she was wicked. He tells of all the evil things she
does, by which Langland means to show what wicked things men will
do if tempted by bribery and the hope of gain.
"Then mourned Meed and plained her to the King." If men did
great and noble deeds, she said, they deserved praise and thanks
and rewards.
"'Nay,' quoth Conscience to the King, and kneeled to the
ground,
'There be two manner of Meeds, my Lord, by thy life,
That one the good God giveth by His grace, giveth in His
bliss
To them that will work while that they are here.'"
What a laborer received, he said, was not Meed but just Wages.
Bribery, on the other hand, was ever wicked, and he would have
none of her.
The King received him kindly, and they talked together. But
while they talked Peace came complaining that Wrong had stolen
his goods and ill-treated him in many ways.
Wrong well knew that the complaint was just, but with the help of
Meed he won Wit and Wisdom to his side. But Reason stood out
against him.
The King acknowledged that Reason was right, and begged him to
stay with him always and help him to rule. "I am ready," quoth
Reason, "to rest with thee ever so that Conscience be our
counsellor."
To that the King agreed, and he and his courtiers all went to
church. Here suddenly the dream ends. Langland cries:--
The dreamer arose and continued his wandering. But he had only
gone a few steps when once again he sank upon the grass and fell
asleep and dreamed. Again he saw the field full of folk , and to
them now Conscience was preaching, and at his words many began to
repent them of their evil deeds. Pride, Envy, Sloth and others
confessed their sins and received forgiveness.
Then all these penitent folk set forth in search of Saint Truth,
some riding, some walking. "But there were few there so wise as
to know the way thither, and they went all amiss." No man could
tell them where Saint Truth lived. And now appears at last Piers
Ploughman, who gives his name to the whole poem.
Piers described to the pilgrims all the long way that they must
go in order to find Truth. He told them that they must go
through Meekness; that they must cross the ford Honor-your-father
and turn aside from the brook Bear-no-false-witness, and so on
and on until they come at last to Saint Truth.
"It were a hard road unless we had a guide that might go with us
afoot until we got there," said the pilgrims. So Piers offered,
if they would wait until he had plowed his field, to go with them
and show them the way.
Then these idle ones began to pretend that they were blind or
lame and could not work. They made great moan, but Piers took no
heed and called for Hunger. Then Hunger seized the idle ones and
beat and buffeted them until they were glad to work.
At last Truth heard of Piers and of all the good that he was
doing among the pilgrims, and sent him a pardon for all his sins.
In those days people who had done wrong used to pay money to a
priest and think that they were forgiven by God. Against that
belief Langland preaches, and his pardon is something different.
It is only
"Do well and have well, and God shall have thy soul.
And do evil and have evil, hope none other
That after thy death day thou shalt turn to the Evil One."
John of Gaunt made up his mind to resist this claim, and John
Wyclif, who had already begun to preach against the power of the
Pope, helped him. They were strange companions, and while John
of Gaunt fought only for more power, Wyclif fought for freedom
both in religion and in life. God alone was lord of all the
world, he said, and to God alone each man must answer for his
soul, and to no man beside. The money belonging to the Church of
England belonged to God and to the people of England, and ought
to be used for the good of the people, and not be sent abroad to
the Pope. In those days it needed a bold man to use such words,
and Wyclif was soon called upon to answer for his boldness before
the Archbishop of Canterbury and all his bishops.
"At which words the Duke, disdaining not a little, answered the
Bishop and said that he would keep such mastery there though he
said 'Nay.'"* Thus, after much struggling, Wyclif and his
companions arrived at the chapel. There Wyclif stood humbly
enough before his Bishop. But Earl Percy bade him be seated, for
as he had much to answer he had need of a soft seat.
Thereat the Bishop of London was angry again, and cried out
saying that it was not the custom for those who had come to
answer for their misdeeds to sit.
"Upon these words a fire began to heat and kindle between them;
insomuch that they began to rate and revile one the other, that
the whole multitude therewith disquieted began to be set on a
hurry."*
But soon after this no fewer than five Bulls, or letters from the
Pope, were sent against Wyclif. In one the University of Oxford
was ordered to imprison him; in others Wyclif was ordered to
appear before the Pope; in still another the English bishops were
ordered to arrest him and try him themselves. But little was
done, for the English would not imprison an English subject at
the bidding of a French Pope, lest they should seem to give him
royal power in England.
TO-DAY, as we walk about the streets and watch the people hurry
to and fro, we cannot tell from the dress they wear to what class
they belong. We cannot tell among the men who pass us, all clad
alike in dull, sad-colored clothes, who is a knight and who is a
merchant, who is a shoemaker and who is a baker. If we see them
in their shops we can still tell, perhaps, for we know that a
butcher always wears a blue apron, and a baker a white hat.
These are but the remains of a time long ago when every one
dressed according to his calling, whether at work or not. It was
easy then to tell by the cut and texture of his clothes to what
rank in life a man belonged, for each dressed accordingly, and
only the great might wear silk and velvet and golden ornaments.
But although Chaucer was a great poet, we know very little about
his life. What we do know has nothing to do with his poems or of
how he wrote them. For in those days, and for long after, a
writer was not expected to live by his writing; but in return for
giving to the world beautiful thoughts, beautiful songs, the King
or some great noble would reward him by giving him a post at
court. About this public life of Chaucer we have a few facts.
But it is difficult at times to fit the man of camp, and court,
and counting-house to the poet and story-teller who possessed a
wealth of words and a knowledge of how to use them greater than
any Englishman who had lived before him. And it is rather
through his works than through the scanty facts of his life that
we learn to know the real man, full of shrewd knowledge of the
world, of humor, kindliness, and cheerful courage.
Chaucer was a man of the middle class. His father, John Chaucer,
was a London wine merchant. The family very likely came at first
from France, and the name may mean shoemaker, from an old Norman
word chaucier or chaussier, a shoemaker. And although the French
word for shoemaker is different now, there is still a slang word
chausseur, meaning a cobbler.
Of Chaucer's life with his wife and family again we know nothing
except that he had at least one son, named Lewis. We know this
because he wrote a book, called A Treatise on the Astrolabe, for
this little son. An astrolabe was an instrument used in
astronomy to find out the distance of stars from the earth, the
position of the sun and moon, the length of days, and many other
things about the heavens and their bodies.
So we see from this that more than five hundred years ago a
kindly father saw the need of making simple books on difficult
subjects for children. You may never want to read this book
itself, indeed few people read it now, but I think that we should
all be sorry to lose the preface, although it has in it some long
words which perhaps a boy of ten in our day would still find
"full heavy."
Chaucer's wife, too, had a pension, so the poet was well off. He
had powerful friends also, among them John of Gaunt. And when
the Duke's wife died Chaucer wrote a lament which is called the
Dethe of Blaunche the Duchess, or sometimes the Book of the
Duchess. This is one of the earliest known poems of Chaucer, and
although it is not so good as some which are later, there are
many beautiful lines in it.
The poet led a busy life. He was a good business man, and soon
we find him in the civil service, as we would call it now. He
was made Comptroller of Customs, and in this post he had to work
hard, for one of the conditions was that he must write out the
accounts with his own hand, and always be in the office himself.
If we may take some lines he wrote to be about himself, he was so
busy all day long that he had not time to hear what was happening
abroad, or even what was happening among his friends and
neighbors.
Yet after his hard office work was done he loved nothing better
than to go back to his books, for he goes on to say:
For many years Chaucer was well off and comfortable. But he did
not always remain so. There came a time when his friend and
patron, John of Gaunt, fell from power, and Chaucer lost his
appointments. Soon after that his wife died, and with her life
her pension ceased. So for a year or two the poet knew something
of poverty--poverty at least compared to what he had been used
to. But if he lost his money he did not lose his sunny temper,
and in all his writings we find little that is bitter.
But a reason had to be given for the journey, for in those days
people did not travel about from place to place for the mere
pleasure of seeing another town, as we do now. Few people
thought of going for a change of air, nobody perhaps ever thought
about going to the seaside for the summer. In short, people
always had a special object in taking a journey.
One reason for this was that traveling was slow and often
dangerous. The roads were bad, and people nearly all traveled on
horseback and in company, for robbers lurked by the way ready to
attack and kill, for the sake of their money, any who rode alone
and unprotected. So when a man had to travel he tried to arrange
to go in company with others.
when the soft wind "with his sweet breath inspired hath in every
holt and heath the tender crops"; when the little birds make new
songs, then "longen folk to go on pilgrimages, and palmers for to
seeken strange lands, and especially from every shire's end of
England, to Canterbury they wend."
With the knight was his son, a young squire of twenty years. He
was gay and handsome, with curling hair and comely face. His
clothes were in the latest fashion, gayly embroidered. He sat
his horse well and guided it with ease. He was merry and
careless and clever too, for he could joust and dance, sing and
play, read and write, and indeed do everything as a young squire
should. Yet with it all "courteous he was, lowly and
serviceable."
*Little.
Besides all the other religious folk there were a prioress and a
nun. In those days the convents were the only schools for fine
ladies, and the prioress perhaps spent her days teaching them.
Chaucer makes her very prim and precise.
And she was so tender hearted! She would cry if she saw a mouse
caught in a trap, and she fed her little dog on the best of
everything. In her dress she was very dainty and particular.
And yet with all her fine ways we feel that she was no true lady,
and that ever so gently Chaucer is making fun of her.
Besides the prioress and the nun there was only one other woman
in the company. This was the vulgar, bouncing Wife of Bath. She
dressed in rich and gaudy clothes, she liked to go about to see
and be seen and have a good time. She had been married five
times, and though she was getting old and rather deaf, she was
quite ready to marry again, if the husband she had should die
before her.
*Bright.
**Cheapside, a street in London.
The host's name was Harry Baily, a big man and jolly fellow who
dearly loved a joke. After supper was over he spoke to all the
company gathered there. He told them how glad he was to see
them, and that he had not had so merry a company that year. Then
he told them that he had thought of something to amuse them on
the long way to Canterbury. It was this:--
*Twain.
To this every one willingly agreed, and next morning they waked
very early and set off. And having ridden a little way they cast
lots as to who should tell the first tale. The lot fell upon the
knight, who accordingly began.
All that I have told you so far forms the first part of the book
and is called the prologue, which means really "before word" or
explanation. It is perhaps the most interesting part of the
book, for it is entirely Chaucer's own and it is truly English.
Some of these stories you will like to read, but others are too
coarse and rude to give you any pleasure. Even the roughness of
these tales, however, helps us to picture the England of those
far-off days. We see from them how hard and rough the life must
have been when people found humor and fun in jokes in which we
can feel only disgust.
But even in Chaucer's day there were those who found such stories
coarse. "Precious fold," Chaucer calls them. He himself perhaps
did not care for them, indeed he explains in the tales why he
tells them. Here is a company of common, everyday people, he
said, and if I am to make you see these people, if they are to be
living and real to you, I must make them act and speak as such
common people would act and speak. They are churls, and they
must speak like churls and not like fine folk, and if you don't
like the tale, turn over the leaf and choose another.
And now, just to end this long chapter, I will give you a little
poem by Chaucer, written as he wrote it, with modern English
words underneath so that you may see the difference.
This poem was written when Chaucer was very poor. It was sent to
King Henry IV, who had just taken the throne from Richard II.
Henry's answer was a pension of twenty marks, so that once more
Chaucer lived in comfort. He died, however, a year later.
L'ENVOY* DE CHAUCER
In reading this you must sound the final "e" in each word except
when the next word begins with an "h" or with another vowel. You
will then find it read easily and smoothly.
BOOKS TO READ
AND now, lest you should say, "What, still more poetry!" I shall
give you next a chapter about a great story-teller who wrote in
prose. We use story-teller in two senses, and when we speak of
Sir John Mandeville we use it in both. He was a great story-
teller.
But before saying anything about his stories, I must first tell
you that after having been believed in as a real person for five
hundred years and more, Sir John has at last been found out. He
never lived at all, and the travels about which he tells us so
finely never took place.
But although we know Sir John Mandeville was not English, that he
never saw the places he describes, that indeed he never lived at
all, we will still call him by that name. For we must call him
something, and as no one really knows who wrote the book which is
known as The Voyages and Travels of Sir John Mandeville, we may
as well call the author by the name he chose as by another.
Sir John, then, tells us that he was born in St. Albans, that he
was a knight, and that in 1322 he set out on his travels. He
traveled about for more than twenty years, but at last, although
in the course of them he had drunk of the well of everlasting
youth, he became so crippled with gout that he could travel no
longer. He settled down, therefore, at Liege in Belgium. There
he wrote his book, and there he died and was buried. At any
rate, many years afterwards his tomb was shown there. It was
also shown at St. Albans, where the people were very proud of it.
After telling about the tomb of St. John at Ephesus, Sir John
goes on: "And then men pass through the isles of Cophos and
Lango, of the which isles Ipocras was lord. And some say that in
the isle of Lango is Ipocras's daughter in form of a Dragon. It
is a hundred foot long, so men say. But I have not seen it. And
they say the people of the isles call her the lady of the
country, and she lieth in an old castle and sheweth herself
thrice a year. And she doeth no man harm. And she is thus
changed from a lady to a Dragon through a goddess whom men call
Diana.
"And men say that she shall dwell so until the time that a knight
come that is so hardy as to go to her and kiss her mouth. And
then shall she turn again to her own kind and be a woman. And
after that she shall not live long.
"Also a young man that wist not of the Dragon went out of a ship
and went through the isle till he came to a castle. Then came he
into the cave and went on till he found a chamber. And there he
saw a lady combing her hair, and looking in a mirror. And she
had much treasure about her. He bowed to the lady, and the lady
saw the shadow of him in the mirror. Then she turned towards him
and asked him what he would. And he answered he would be her
lover.
"Then she asked him if he were a knight, and he said 'Nay.' She
said then he might not be her lover. But she bade him go again
to his fellows and make him knight, and come again on the morrow.
Then she would come out of the cave and he should kiss her on the
mouth. And she bade him have no dread, for she would do him no
harm. Although she seemed hideous to him she said it was done by
enchantment, for, she said, she was really such as he saw her
then. She said, too, that if he kissed her he should have all
the treasure, and be her lord, and lord of all these isles.
"Then he departed from her and went to his fellows in the ship,
and made him knight, and came again on the morrow for to kiss the
damsel. But when he saw her come out of the cave in the form of
a Dragon, he had so great dread that he fled to the ship. She
followed him, and when she saw that he turned not again she began
to cry as a thing that had much sorrow, and turned back again.
"Soon after the knight died, and since, hitherto, might no knight
see her but he died anon. But when a knight cometh that is so
hardy to kiss her, he shall not die, but he shall turn that
damsel into her right shape and shall be lord of the country
aforesaid."
When Sir John reaches Palestine he has very much to say of the
wonders to be seen there. At Bethlehem he tells a story of how
roses first came into the world. Here it is:
"Bethlehem is but a little city, long and narrow, and well walled
and enclosed with a great ditch, and it was wont to be called
Ephrata, as Holy Writ sayeth, 'Lo, we heard it at Ephrata.' And
toward the end of the city toward the East, is a right fair
church and a gracious. And it hath many towers, pinnacles and
turrets full strongly made. And within that church are forty-
four great pillars of marble, and between the church the Field
Flowered as ye shall hear.
"The cause is, for as much as a fair maiden was blamed with
wrong, for the which cause she was deemed to die, and to be burnt
in that place, to the which she was led.
"And as the wood began to burn about her, she made her prayer to
our Lord as she was not guilty of that thing, that He would help
her that her innocence might be known to all men.
"And when she had this said she entered the fire. And anon the
fire went out, and those branches that were burning became red
roses, and those branches that were not kindled became white
roses. And those were the first roses and rose-trees that any
man saw. And so was the maiden saved through the grace of God,
and therefore is that field called the Field of God Flowered, for
it was full of roses."
"And in another isle dwell men that have no heads, and their eyes
are in their shoulders and their mouth is in their breast. . . .
"And in another isle are men that have flat faces without nose
and without eyes, but they have two small round holes instead of
eyes and they have a flat mouth without lips. . . .
"And in another isle are men that have the lips about their mouth
so great that when they sleep in the sun they cover all their
face with the lip."
But I must not tell all the "lying wonders of our English
knight."* for you must read the book for yourselves. And when
you do you will find that it is written with such an easy air of
truth that you will half believe in Sir John's marvels. Every
now and again, too, he puts in a bit of real information which
helps to make his marvels seem true, so that sometimes we cannot
be sure what is truth and what is fable.
Sir John wandered far and long, but at last his journeyings
ended. "I have passed through many lands and isles and
countries," he says, "and now am come to rest against my will."
And so to find comfort in his "wretched rest" he wrote his book.
"But," he says, "there are many other divers countries, and many
other marvels beyond that I have not seen. Also in countries
where I have been there are many marvels that I speak not of, for
it were too long a tale." And also, he thought, it was as well
to leave something untold "so that other men that go thither may
find enough for to say that I have not told," which was very kind
of him.
Sir John tells us then how he took his book to the holy father
the Pope, and how he caused it to be read, and "the Pope hath
ratified and affirmed my book in all points. And I pray to all
those that read this book, that they will pray for me, and I
shall pray for them."
BOOKS TO READ
The music of The Bruce cannot compare with the music of the
Tales, but the spirit throughout is one of manliness, of delight
in noble deeds and noble thoughts. Barbour's way of telling his
stories is simple and straightforward. It is full of stern
battle, yet there are lines of tender beauty, but nowhere do we
find anything like the quiet laughter and humor of Chaucer. And
that is not wonderful, for those were stern times in Scotland,
and The Bruce is as much an outcome of those times as were the
Tales or Piers Ploughman an outcome of the times in England.
Barbour was given two other safe-conducts, one to allow him again
to visit Oxford, and another to allow him to pass through England
on his way to France. Besides this, we know that Barbour
received a pension from the King of Scotland, and that he held
his archdeaconry until his death; and that is almost all that we
know certainly of his life.
The Bruce is the great national poem, Robert the Bruce the great
national hero of Scotland. But although The Bruce concerns
Scotland in the first place, it is of interest to every one, for
it is full of thrilling stories of knightly deeds, many of which
are true. "The fine poem deserves to be better known," says one
of its editors.* "It is a proud thing for a country to have
given a subject for such an Odyssey, and to have had so early in
its literature a poet worthy to celebrate it." And it is little
wonder that Barbour wrote so stirringly of his hero, for he lived
not many years after the events took place, and when he was a
schoolboy Robert the Bruce was still reigning over Scotland.
*Cosmo Innes.
The story begins with describing the state of Scotland after the
death of Alexander III, when Edward I ruled in England.
Alexander had been a good king, but at his death the heir to the
throne was a little girl, the Maid of Norway. She was not even
in Scotland, but was far across the sea. And as this child-queen
came sailing to her kingdom she died on board ship, and so never
saw the land over which she ruled.
Then came a sad time for Scotland. "The land six year and more
i-faith lay desolate," for there was no other near heir to the
throne, and thirteen nobles claimed it. At last, as they could
not agree which had the best right, they asked King Edward of
England to decide for them.
This, however, the Scots would not suffer. Freedom they had ever
loved, and freedom they would have. No man, they said, whether
he were chosen King or no, had power to make them thralls of
England.
Yet even while Bruce comforted his men he bade them be brave, and
said:--
It was in spring that Bruce and his men gathered to the island of
Arran, off the west coast of Scotland, and there Bruce made up
his mind to make another fight for the crown. A messenger was
therefore sent over to the mainland, and it was arranged that if
he found friends there, if he thought it was safe for the King to
come, he should, at a certain place, light a great fire as a
signal. Anxiously Bruce watched for the light, and at last he
saw it. Then joyfully the men launched their boat, and the King
and his few faithful followers set out.
"They row�d fast with all their might,
Till that upon them fell the night,
That it wox mirk* in great manner
So that they wist not where they were,
For they no needle had, nor stone,
But row�d always in one way,
Steering always upon the fire
That they saw burning bright and clear.
It was but adventure that them led,
And they in short time so them sped
That at the fire arrived they,
And went to land but** mair delay."
*Dark.
**Without.
*Well.
And so, taking courage, they set out in the darkness, and
attacked the town, and took it with great slaughter.
Thus once again the fierce struggle was begun. But this time the
Bruce was successful. From town after town, from castle after
castle the enemy was driven out, till only Stirling was left to
the English. It was near this town, on the field of Bannockburn,
that the last great struggle took place. Brave King Edward I was
dead by this time, but his son, Edward II, led the army. It was
the greatest army that had ever entered Scotland, but the Scots
won the day and won freedom at the same time. I cannot tell you
of this great battle, nor of all the adventures which led up to
it. These you must read in other books, one day, I hope, in
Barbour's Bruce itself.
From the day of Bannockburn, Barbour tells us, Robert the Bruce
grew great.
And here Barbour ends the first part of his poem. In the second
part he goes on to tell us of how the Bruces carried war into
Ireland, of how they overran Northumberland, and of how at length
true peace was made. Then King Robert's little son David, who
was but five, was married to Joan, the seven-year-old sister of
King Edward III. Thus, after war, came rest and ease to both
countries.
But King Robert did not live long to enjoy his well-earned rest.
He died, and all the land was filled with mourning and sorrow.
Barbour ends his book by telling of how the Douglas set out to
carry the heart of the Bruce to Palestine, and of how he fell
fighting in Spain, and of how his dead body and the King's heart
were brought back to Scotland.
Barbour was born about six years after the battle of Bannockburn.
As a boy he must have heard many stories of these stirring times
from those who had taken part in them. He must have known many a
woman who had lost husband or father in the great struggle. He
may even have met King Robert himself. And as a boy he must have
shared in the sorrow that fell upon the land when its hero died.
He must have remembered, when he grew up, how the people mourned
when the dead body of the Douglas and the heart of the gallant
Bruce were brought home from Spain. But in spite of Barbour's
prayer to be kept from saying "ought but soothfast thing," we
must not take The Bruce too seriously. If King Robert was a true
King he was also a true hero of romance. We must not take all
The Bruce as serious history, but while allowing for the truth of
much, we must also allow something for the poet's worship of his
hero, a hero, too, who lived so near the time in which he wrote.
We must allow something for the feelings of a poet who so
passionately loved the freedom for which that hero fought.
BOOKS TO READ
"Thus passed the years, and the chief change that they brought
was a change of prison. After the Tower it was the Castle of
Nottingham, another citadel of the Norman time, then Evesham,
then again the Tower when Henry V came to the throne; and at
last, and this was by contrast almost liberty, the Castle of
Windsor."*
How all this happened King James has told us himself in a book
called The King's Quair, which means the King's little book,
which he wrote while he was still a prisoner in England.
King James tells us how one night he could not sleep, try as he
might. He lay tossing and tumbling, "but sleep for craft on
earth might I no more." So at last, "knowing no better wile," he
took a book hoping "to borrow a sleep" by reading. But instead
of bringing sleep, the book only made him more and more wide
awake. At length he says:--
*Without.
Again he lay thinking and tossing upon his bed until he was
weary.
*Living person.
Prince James says he had already wasted much ink and paper on
writing, yet at the bidding of the bell he decided to write some
new thing. So up he rose,
Prince James then tells of his past life, of how, when he was a
lad, his father sent him across the sea in a ship, and of how he
was taken prisoner and found himself in "Straight ward and strong
prison" "without comfort in sorrow." And there full often he
bemoaned his fate, asking what crime was his that he should be
shut up within four walls when other men were free.
A lovely lady was walking in the garden, a lady more lovely than
he had dreamed any one might be. Her hair was golden, and
wreathed with flowers. Her dress was rich, and jewels sparkled
on her white throat. Spellbound, he stood a while watching the
lovely lady. He could do nothing but gaze.
Thus, from the first moment in which he saw her, James loved the
beautiful lady. After a few minutes he drew in his head lest she
might see him and be angry with him for watching her. But soon
he leaned out again, for while she was in the garden he felt he
must watch and see her walk "so womanly."
So he stood still at the window, and although the lady was far
off in the garden, and could not hear him, he whispered to her,
telling of his love. "O sweet," he said, "are you an earthly
creature, or are you a goddess? How shall I do reverence to you
enough, for I love you? And you, if you will not love me too,
why, then have you come? Have you but come to add to the misery
of a poor prisoner?"
Prince James looked, and longed, and sighed, and envied the
little dog with which the lovely lady played. Then he scolded
the little birds because they sang no more. "Where are the songs
you chanted this morning?" he asked. "Why do you not sing now?
Do you not see that the most beautiful lady in all the world is
come into your garden?" Then to the nightingale he cried, "Lift
up thine heart and sing with good intent. If thou would sing
well ever in thy life, here is i-faith the time--here is the time
or else never."
Then, indeed, the day was dark for the Prince. The beautiful
lady in going had left him more lonely than before. Now he truly
knew what it was to be a prisoner. All day long he knelt at the
window, watching, and longing, and not knowing by what means he
might see his lady again. At last night came, and worn out in
heart and mind he leaned his head #against the cold rough stone
and slept.
And so through "air and water and hot fire" he was carried,
seeing and hearing many wonders, till he awoke to find himself
still kneeling by his window.
Was it all a dream, Prince James asked himself, even the vision
of the lovely lady in the garden? At that thought his heart grew
heavy. Then, as if to comfort him, a dove flew in at his window
carrying in her mouth a sprig of gilliflowers. Upon the stalk in
golden letters were written the words, "Awake! Awake! lover, I
bring thee glad news."
And so the story had a happy ending, for Prince James knew that
the lovely lady of the garden loved him. "And if you think," he
says, "that I have written a great deal about a very little
thing, I say this to you:--
Now the King had read a prophecy in which it was said that a King
of Scotland should be slain that same year. So wondering what
this woman might mean, he sent a knight to speak with the woman.
But the knight could make nothing of her, and returning to the
King he said, "Sir, take no heed of yon woman's words, for she is
old and foolish, and wots not what she sayeth." So the King rode
on.
Christmas went by quietly and peacefully, and the New Year came,
and still the King lingered in Perth. The winter days passed
pleasantly in reading, walking, and tennis-playing; the evenings
in chess-playing, music, and story-telling.
But one night, as James was chatting and laughing with the Queen
and her ladies before going to bed, a great noise was heard. The
sound of many feet, the clatter of armor mingled with wild cries
was borne to the quiet room, and through the high windows flashed
the light of many torches.
At once the King guessed that he was betrayed. The Queen and her
ladies ran hastily to the door to shut it. But the locks had
been broken and the bolts carried away, so that it could not be
fastened.
Then turning to the fire James seized the tongs, "and under his
feet he mightily brast up a blank of the chamber,"* and leaping
down into the vault beneath he let the plank fall again into its
place. By this vault the King might have escaped, for until
three days before there had been a hole leading from it to the
open air. But as he played tennis his balls often rolled into
this hole and were lost. So he had ordered it to be built up.
*The same.
There was nothing, then, for the King to do but wait. Meanwhile
the noise grew louder and louder, the traitors came nearer and
nearer. One brave lady named Catherine Douglas, hoping to keep
them out, and so save the King, thrust her arm through the iron
loops on the door where the great bolt should have been. But
against the savage force without, her frail, white arm was
useless. The door was burst open. Wounded and bleeding,
Catherine Douglas was thrown aside and the wild horde stormed
into the room.
It was not long ere the King's hiding-place was found, and one of
the traitors leaped down beside him with a great knife in his
hand. "And the King, doubting him for his life, caught him
mightily by the shoulders, and with full great violence cast him
under his feet. For the King was of his person and stature a man
right manly strong."*
*The same.
*The same.
*The same.
And thus the poet King died with sixteen wounds in his brave
heart and many more in his body. So at the long last our story
has a sad ending. But we have to remember that for twelve years
King James had a happy life, and that as he had loved his lady at
the first so he loved her to the end, and was true to her.
Besides The King's Quair, there are a few other short poems which
some people think King James wrote. They are very different from
the Quair, being more like the ballads of the people, and most
people think now that James did not write them. But because they
are different is no real reason for thinking that they are not
his. For James was quite clever enough, we may believe, to write
in more than one way.
BOOKS TO READ
William Dunbar was perhaps born in 1460 and began his life when
James III began his reign. He was of noble family, but there is
little to know about his life, and as with Chaucer, what we learn
about the man himself we learn chiefly from his writing. We
know, however, that he went to the University of St. Andrews, and
that it was intended that he should go into the Church. In those
days in Scotland there were only two things a gentleman might be
- either he must be a soldier or a priest. Dunbar's friends,
perhaps seeing that he was fond of books, thought it best to make
him a priest. But indeed he had made a better soldier. For a
time, however, although he was quite unsuited for such a life, he
became a friar. As a preaching friar he wandered far.
*Flattered.
For us the most interesting poem is The Thistle and the Rose.
This was written when Margaret, the daughter of King Henry VII of
England, came to be the wife of King James IV of Scotland.
Dunbar was the "Rhymer of Scotland," that is the poet-laureate of
his day, and so, as was natural, he made a poem upon this great
event. For a poet-laureate is the King's poet, and it is his
duty to make poems on all the great things that may happen to the
King. For this he receives a certain amount of money and a cask
of wine every year. But it is the honor and not the reward which
is now prized.
"Nevertheless rise," said May. And so the lazy poet rose and
followed the lady into a lovely garden. Here he saw many
wonderful and beautiful sights. He saw all the birds, and
beasts, and flowers in the world pass before Dame Nature.
*Guarded.
**Rest = others.
By the Thistle, of course, Dunbar means James IV, and by the Rose
the Princess Margaret.
Then to the Rose Dame Nature spoke, and crowned her with "a
costly crown with shining rubies bright." When that was done all
the flowers rejoiced, crying out, "Hail be thou, richest Rose."
Then all the birds - the thrush, the lark, the nightingale--cried
"Hail," and "the common voice uprose of birdies small" till all
the garden rang with joy.
*Before = already.
Thus did Dunbar sing of the wedding of the Thistle and the Rose.
It was a marriage by which the two peoples hoped once more to
bring a lasting peace between the two countries. And although
the hope was not at once fulfilled, it was a hundred years later.
For upon the death of Elizabeth, James VI of Scotland, the great-
grandson of Margaret Tudor and James Stuart, received the crown
of England also, thus joining the two rival countries. Then came
the true marriage of the Thistle and the Rose.
This may have been so. For although Dunbar makes no mention of
Flodden in his poems, it is possible that he may have done so in
some that are lost. But where this great poet lies taking his
last rest we do not know. It may be he was laid in some quiet
country churchyard. It may be he met death suddenly amid the din
and horror of battle.
BOOKS TO READ
Books began to grow many and cheap. More and more people learned
to read, and this helped to settle our language into a form that
was to last. French still, although it was no longer the
language of the court or of the people, had an influence on our
speech. People traveled little, and in different parts of the
country different dialects, which were almost like different
languages, were spoken. We have seen that the "Inglis" of
Scotland differed from Chaucer's English, and the language of the
north of England differed from it just as much. But when printed
books increased in number quickly, when every man could see for
himself what the printed words looked like, these differences
began to die out. Then our English, as a literary language, was
born.
It was Caxton, you remember, who was the first English printer.
We have already heard of him when following the Arthur story as
the printer of Malory's Morte d'Arthur. But Caxton was not only
a printer, he was author, editor, printer, publisher and
bookseller all in one.
But even with all his other work, with his trading and ruling to
attend to, Caxton found time to read and write, and he began to
translate from the French a book of stories called the Recuyell*
of the Histories of Troy. This is a book full of the stories of
Greek heroes and of the ancient town of Troy.
Caxton was not very well pleased with his work, however--he "fell
into despair of it," he says--and for two years he put it aside
and wrote no more.
This was much more than was usually spent at the burial of
ordinary people in those days.
Among the many books which Caxton printed we must not forget Sir
Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur, which we spoke of out of its
place in following the story of Arthur in Chapter VIII. Perhaps
you would like to turn back and read it over again now.
"And then at last another said that he would have eyren. Then
the good wife said that she understood him well. So what should
a man in these days now write, eggs or eyren? Certainly it is
hard to please every man by cause of diversity and change of
language. . . .
"And some honest and great clerks have been with me, and desired
me to write the most curious terms that I could find. And thus
between plain, rude, and curious I stand abashed. But in my
judgement the common terms that be daily used, be lighter to be
understood than the old and ancient English."
We know that Caxton printed at least one hundred and two editions
of books. And you will be surprised to hear that of all these
only two or three were books of poetry. Here we have a sure sign
that the singing time was nearly over. I do not mean that we are
to have no more singers, for most of our greatest are still to
come. But from this time prose had shaken off its fetters. It
was no longer to be used only for sermons, for prayers, for
teaching. It was to take its place beside poetry as a means of
enjoyment - as literature. Literature, then, was no longer the
affair of the market-place and the banqueting-hall, but of a
man's own fireside and quiet study. It was no longer the affair
of the crowd, but of each man to himself alone.
This shows us how quickly stories became changed in the days when
everything was copied by hand. When Caxton wrote these words
Chaucer had not been dead more than about eighty years, yet
already it was not easy to find a good copy of his works.
YEAR 8
MANY of you have, no doubt, been to the theater. You have seen
pantomimes and Peter Pan, perhaps; perhaps, too, a play of
Shakespeare, - a comedy, it may be, which made you laugh, or even
a tragedy which made you want to cry, or at least left you sad.
Some of you, too, have been to "Pageants," and some may even have
been to an oratorio, which last may have been sung in a church.
But did you ever wonder how plays and theaters came to be? Did
you ever think that there was a time when in all the length and
breadth of the land there was no theater, when there were no
plays either merry or sad? Yet it was so. But at a very early
time the people of England began to act. And, strange as it may
seem to us now, the earliest plays were acted by monks and took
place in church. And it is from these very early monkish plays
that the theater with its different kinds of plays, that pageants
and even oratorios have sprung.
You remember when Caedmon sang, he made his songs of the stories
of Genesis and Exodus. And in this way, in those bookless days,
the people were taught the Bible stories. But you know that what
we learn by our ears is much harder to remember than what we
learn by our eyes. If we are only told a thing we may easily
forget it. But if we have seen it, or seen a picture of it, we
remember it much more easily. In those far-off days, however,
there were as few pictures as there were books in England. And
so the priests and monks fell upon the plan of acting the Bible
stories and the stories of the saints, so that the people might
see and better understand.
These plays which the monks made were called Mystery or Miracle
plays. I cannot tell you the exact date of our first Miracle
plays, but the earliest that we know of certainly was acted at
the end of the eleventh or beginning of the twelfth century. It
is not unreasonable to suppose, however, that there had been
still earlier plays of which we know nothing. For the Miracle
plays did not spring all at once to life, they began gradually,
and the beginnings can be traced as far back as the ninth
century. In an old book of rules for Winchester Cathedral,
written about 959, there are directions given for showing the
death and resurrection of Christ in dumb show chiefly, with just
a few Latin sentences to explain it. By degrees these plays grew
longer and fuller, until in them the whole story of man from the
Creation to the Day of Judgment was acted in what was called a
cycle or circle of short acts or plays.
The demons were generally funny, and Noah's wife, who argued
about going into the ark. The shepherds, also, watching their
flocks by night, were almost sure to make the people laugh.
But there were solemn moments, too, when the people reverently
listened to the grave words of God the Father, or to those,
tender and loving, of Mary, the Virgin Mother. And when the
shepherds neared the manger where lay the wondrous Babe, all
jesting ceased. Here there was nothing but tender, if simple and
unlearned, adoration.
In those early days Latin was the tongue of the Church, and the
Miracle plays were at first said in Latin. But as the common
folk could not understand what was said, the plays were chiefly
shown in dumb show. Soon, however, Latin was given up, and the
plays were acted in English. Then by degrees the churches grew
too small to hold the great crowds of people who wished to see
the plays, and so they were acted outside the church door in the
churchyard, on a stage built level with the steps. The church,
then, could be made to represent heaven, where God and the angels
dwelt. The stage itself was the world, and below it was hell,
from out of which came smoke and sometimes flames, and whence
might be heard groans and cries and the clanking of chains.
But the playing of Mysteries and Miracles at the church doors had
soon to be given up. For the people, in their excitement, forgot
the respect due to the dead. They trampled upon the graves and
destroyed the tombs in their eagerness to see. And when the play
was over the graveyard was a sorry sight with trodden grass and
broken headstones. So by degrees it came about that these plays
lost their connection with the churches, and were no more played
in or near them. They were, instead, played in some open space
about the town, such as the market-place. Then, too, the players
ceased to be monks and priests, and the acting was taken up by
the people themselves. It was then that the playing came into
the hands of the trade guilds.
The Miracles were now acted on a movable stage. This stage was
called a pageant, and the play which was acted on it was also in
time called a pageant. The stage was made in two stories. The
upper part was open all round, and upon this the acting took
place. The under part was curtained all round, and here the
actors dressed. From here, too, they came out, and when they had
finished their parts they went back again within the curtains.
Thus, if a man kept his place all a long summer's day, he might
see pass before him pageant after pageant until he had seen the
whole story of the world, from the Creation to the Day of
Judgment.
In time nearly every town of any size in England had its own
cycle of plays, but only four of these have come down to us.
These are the York, the Chester, the Wakefield, and the Coventry
cycles. Perhaps the most interesting of them all are the
Wakefield plays. They are also called the Townley plays, from
the name of the family who possessed the manuscript for a long
time.
Year after year the same guild acted the same play. And it
really seemed as if the pageant was in many cases chosen to suit
the trade of the players. The water-drawers of Chester, for
instance, acted the Flood. In York the shipwrights acted the
building of the ark, the fishmongers the Flood, and the gold-
beaters and money-workers the three Kings out of the East.
The actors, too, were paid. Here are some of the prices:--
Some got much more than others. Pilate, for instance, who was an
important character, got 4s., while two angels only got 8d.
between them. But while the rehearsing and acting were going on
the players received their food, and when it was all over they
wound up with a great supper.
In this strain the shepherd grumbles until the second comes. He,
too, complains of the cold.
So they talk until the third shepherd comes. He, too, grumbles.
The first two ask the third shepherd where the sheep are. "Sir,"
he replies,
"This same day at morn
I left them i the corn
When they rang lauds.
They had pasture good they cannot go wrong."
That is all right, say the others, and so they settle to sing a
song, when a neighbor named Mak comes along. They greet the
newcomer with jests. But the second shepherd is suspicious of
him.
"I am true as steel," says Mak. "All men wot it. But a sickness
I feel that holds me full hot," and so, he says, he is obliged to
walk about at night for coolness.
The shepherds are all very weary and want to sleep. But just to
make things quite safe, they bid Mak lie down between them so
that he cannot move without awaking them. Mak lies down as he is
bid, but he does not sleep, and as soon as the others are all
snoring he softly rises and "borrows" a sheep.
"Who makes such din this time of night?" answers his wife from
within.
When she hears that it is Mak she unbars the door, but when she
sees what her husband brings she is afraid.
"By the naked neck thou art like to hang," she says.
"But so long goes the pot to the water, men say, at last comes it
home broken," cries Gill.
But the question is, now that they have the sheep, how is it to
be his from the shepherds. For Mak feels sure that they will
suspect him when they find out that a sheep is missing.
Gill has a plan. She will swaddle the sheep like a new-born baby
and lay it in the cradle. This being done, Mak returns to the
shepherds, whom he finds still sleeping, and lies down again
beside them. Presently they all awake and rouse Mak, who still
pretends to sleep. He, after some talk, goes home, and the
shepherds go off to seek and count their sheep, agreeing to meet
again at the "crooked thorn."
Soon the shepherds find that one sheep is missing, and suspecting
Mak of having stolen it they follow him home. They find him
sitting by the cradle singing a lullaby to the new-born baby,
while Gill lies in bed groaning and pretending to be very ill.
Mak greets the shepherds in a friendly way, but bids them speak
softly and not walk about, as his wife is ill and the baby
asleep.
But the shepherds will not be put off with words. They search
the house, but can find nothing.
*Soft.
**Empty.
Meanwhile, Gill from her bed cries out at them, calling them
thieves. "Ye come to rob us. I swear if ever I you beguiled,
that I eat this child that lies in this cradle."
"Then back will I go," says the third shepherd, "abide ye there."
But Mak still pretends to be sulky, and will not let him come
near the child. By this time all the shepherds have come back.
One wants to kiss the baby, and bends over the cradle. Suddenly
he starts back. What a nose! The deceit is found out and the
shepherds are very angry. Yet even in their anger they can
hardly help laughing. Mak and Gill, however, are ready of wit.
They will not own to the theft. It is a changeling child, they
say.
says Gill.
And it is now, when the shepherds are resting from their hard
work of beating Mak, that they hear the angels sing "Glory to God
in the highest." From this point on all the jesting ceases, and
in its rough way the play is reverent and loving.
*Noble.
The shepherds hear the words of the angel, and looking upward see
the guiding star. Wondering at the music, talking of the
prophecies of David and Isaiah, they hasten to Bethlehem and find
the lowly stable. Here, with a mixture of awe and tenderness,
the shepherds greet the Holy Child. It is half as if they spoke
to the God they feared, half as if they played with some little
helpless baby who was their very own. They mingle simple things
of everyday life with their awe. They give him gifts, but their
simple minds can imagine no other than those they might give to
their own children.
*Hand.
A LITTLE later than the Miracle and Mystery plays came another
sort of play called the Moralities. In these, instead or
representing real people, the actors represented thoughts,
feelings and deeds, good and bad. Truth, for instance, would be
shown as a beautiful lady; Lying as an ugly old man, and so on.
These plays were meant to teach just as the Miracles were meant
to teach. But instead of teaching the Bible stories, they were
made to show men the ugliness of sin and the beauty of goodness.
When we go to the theater now we only think of being amused, and
it is strange to remember that all acting was at first meant to
teach.
The very first of our Moralities seems to have been a play of the
Lord's Prayer. It was acted in the reign of Edward III or some
time after 1327. But that has long been lost, and we know
nothing of it but its name. There are several other Moralities,
however, which have come down to us of a later date, the earliest
being of the fifteenth century, and of them perhaps the most
interesting is Everyman.
But Death is stern. "Thee availeth not to cry, weep and pray,"
he says, "but haste thee lightly that thou wert gone the
journey."
This play is meant to picture the life of every man or woman, and
to show how unhappy we may be in the end if we have not tried to
be good in this world.
BOOKS TO READ
John Skelton, like so many other literary men of those days, was
a priest. He studied, perhaps, both at Oxford and at Cambridge,
and became tutor to Prince, afterwards King, Henry VIII. We do
not know if he had an easy time with his royal pupil or not, but
in one of his poems he tells us that "The honour of England I
learned to spell" and "acquainted him with the Muses nine."
The days of Henry VIII were troublous times for thinking people.
The King was a tyrant, and the people of England were finding it
harder than ever to bow to a tyrant while the world was awakening
to new thought, and new desires for freedom, both in religion and
in life.
At first Wolsey, the great Cardinal and friend of Henry VIII, was
Skelton's friend too. But Skelton's tongue was mocking and
bitter. "He was a sharp satirist, but with more railing and
scoffery than became a poet-laureate,"* said one. The Cardinal
became an enemy, and the railing tongue was turned against him.
In a poem called Colin Cloute Skelton pointed out the evils of
his day and at the same time pointed the finger of scorn at
Wolsey. Colin Cloute, like Piers Ploughman, was meant to mean
the simple good Englishman.
*George Puttenham.
And again:--
But he adds:--
*Same as canon.
Yet, although Skelton said he would not decry any good man or any
good work, his spirit was a mocking one. He was fond of harsh
jests and rude laughter, and no person or thing was too high or
too holy to escape his sharp wit. "He was doubtless a pleasant
conceited fellow, and of a very sharp wit," says a writer about
sixty years later, "exceeding bold, and would nip to the very
quick when he once set hold."*
*William Webbe.
And being bold as bitter, and having set hold with hatred upon
Wolsey, he in another poem called Why come ye not to Court? and
in still another called Speake, Parrot, wrote directly against
the Cardinal. Yet although Skelton railed against the Cardinal
and against the evils in the Church, he was no Protestant. He
believed in the Church of Rome, and would have been sorry to
think that he had helped the "heretics."
Wolsey was still powerful, and he made up his mind to silence his
enemy, so Skelton found himself more than once in prison, and at
last to escape the Cardinal's anger he was forced to take
sanctuary in Westminster. There he remained until he died a few
months before his great enemy fell from power.
But the poem which keeps most interest for us is one which
perhaps at the time it was written was thought least important.
It is called The Book of Philip Sparrow. And this poem shows us
that Skelton was not always bitter and biting. For it is neither
bitter nor coarse, but is a dainty and tender lament written for
a schoolgirl whose sparrow had been killed by a cat. It is
written in the same short lines as Colin Cloute and others of
Skelton's poems--"Breathless rhymes"* they have been called.
These short lines remind us somewhat of the old Anglo-Saxon short
half-lines, except that they rime. They are called after their
author "Skeltonical."
*Bishop Hall.
"Pla ce bo,*
Who is there who?
Di le sci,
Dame Margery;
Fa re my my,
Wherefore and why why?
For the soul of Philip Sparrow
That was late slain at Carowe
Among the nuns black,
For that sweet soul's sake,
And for all sparrows' souls,
Set in our bead rolls,
Pater Noster qui,
With an Ave Mari,
And with the corner of a creed,
The more shall be your need.
*Slay.
. . . .
For it would come and go,
And fly so to and fro;
And on me it would leap
When I was asleep,
And his feathers shake,
Wherewith he would make
Me often for to wake.
. . . .
That vengeance I ask and cry,
By way of exclamation,
On all the whole nation
Of cats wild and tame.
God send them sorrow and shame!
That cat especially
That slew so cruelly
My little pretty sparrow
That I brought up at Carowe.
O cat of churlish kind,
The fiend was in thy mind,
When thou my bird untwined.*
I would thou hadst been blind.
The leopards savage,
The lions in their rage,
Might catch thee in their paws
And gnaw thee in their jaws.
*Tore to pieces.
. . . .
These villainous false cats,
Were made for mice and rats,
And not for birdies small.
. . . .
Alas, mine heart is slayeth
My Philip's doleful death,
When I remember it,
How prettily it would sit,
Many times and oft,
Upon my finger aloft.
. . . .
To weep with me, look that ye come,
All manner of birds of your kind;
So none be left behind,
To mourning look that ye fall
With dolorous songs funeral,
Some to sing, and some to say,
Some to weep, and some to pray,
Every bird in his lay.
The goldfinch and the wagtail;
The gangling jay to rail,
The flecked pie to chatter
Of the dolorous matter;
The robin redbreast,
He shall be the priest,
The requiem mass to sing,
Softly warbling,
With help of the red sparrow,
And the chattering swallow,
This hearse for to hallow;
The lark with his lung too,
The chaffinch and the martinet also;
. . . .
The lusty chanting nightingale,
The popinjay to tell her tale,
That peepeth oft in the glass,
Shall read the Gospel at mass;
The mavis with her whistle
Shall read there the Epistle,
But with a large and a long
To keep just plain song.
. . . .
The peacock so proud,
Because his voice is loud,
And hath a glorious tail
He shall sing the grayle;*
All of you have read English history, and there you read of the
Romans. You know what a clever and conquering people they were,
and how they subdued all the wild tribes who lived in the
countries around them. Besides conquering all the barbarians
around them, the Romans conquered another people who were not
barbarians, but who were in some ways more civilized than
themselves. These were the Greeks. They had a great literature,
they were more learned and quite as skilled in the arts of peace
as the Romans. Yet in 146 B.C., long before the Romans came to
our little island, Greece became a Roman province.
Nearly five hundred years later there sat upon the throne an
Emperor named Constantine. And he, although Rome was still
pagan, became a Christian. He was, besides, a great and powerful
ruler. His court was brilliant, glittering with all the golden
splendor of those far-off times. But although Rome was still
pagan, Greece, a Roman province, had become Christian. And in
this Christian province Constantine made up his mind to build a
New Rome.
Baldwin did not long rule as Emperor of the East, and the Greeks
after a time succeeded in regaining Constantinople from the
western Christians. But although for nearly two hundred years
longer they kept it, the Empire was dying and lifeless. And by
degrees, as the power of Greece grew less, the power of Turkey
grew greater. At length in 1453 the Sultan Mohammed II attacked
Constantinople. Then the Cross, which for a thousand years and
more had stood upon the ramparts of Christendom, went down before
the Crescent.
It was a New Birth, and men called it so. For that is the
meaning of Renaissance. Many things besides the fall of
Constantinople helped towards this New Birth. The discovery of
new worlds by daring sailors like Columbus and Cabot, and the
discovery of printing were among them. But the touchstone of the
New Learning was the knowledge of Greek, which had been to the
greater part of Europe a lost tongue. On this side of the Alps
there was not a school or college in which it could be learned.
So to Italy, where the Greek scholars had found a refuge, those
who wished to learn flocked.
Among them were some Oxford scholars. Chief of these were three,
whose names you will learn to know well when you come to read
more about this time. They were William Grocyn, "the most
upright and best of all Britons,"* Thomas Linacre, and John
Colet. These men, returning from Italy full of the New Learning,
began to teach Greek at Oxford. And it is strange now to think
that there were many then who were bitterly against such
teaching. The students even formed themselves into two parties,
for and against. They were called Greeks and Trojans, and
between these two parties man a fierce fight took place, for the
quarrel did not end in words, but often in blows.
*Erasmus.
The New Learning, however, conquered. And so keenly did men feel
the human interests of such things as were now taught, that we
have come to call grammar, rhetoric, poetry, Greek and Latin the
Humanities, and the professor who teaches these thing the
professor of Humanity.
WHILE the New Learning was stirring England, and Greek was being
for the first time taught in Oxford, a young student of fourteen
came to the University there. This student was named Thomas
More. He was the son of a lawyer who became a judge, and as a
little boy he had been a page in the household of Morton, the
Archbishop of Canterbury.
The Archbishop was quick to see that the boy was clever. "This
child here waiting at the table, whoever will live to see it,
will prove a marvellous man,"* he would say. And so he persuaded
More's father to send the boy to Oxford to study law.
Thomas remained only two years at Oxford, for old Sir John,
fearing he was learning too much Greek and literature and not
enough law, called his son home and sent him to study law in
London. It must have been a disappointment to the boy to be
taken from the clever friends he had made in Oxford, and from the
books and studies that he loved, to be set instead to read dry
law-books. But Thomas More was most sunny-tempered. Nothing
made him sulky or cross. So now he settled down quietly to his
new life, and in a very short time became a famous and learned
lawyer.
In was after More left Oxford that he met the man who became his
dearest friend. This was Desiderius Erasmus, a learned Dutchman.
He was eleven years older than More and he could speak no
English, but that did not prevent them becoming friends, as they
both could speak Latin easily and well. They had much in common.
Erasmus was of the same lively, merry wit as More, they both
loved literature and the Greek learning, and so the two became
fast friends. And it helps us to understand the power which
Latin still held over our literature, and indeed over all the
literature of Europe, when we remember that these two friends
spoke to each other and wrote and jested in Latin as easily as
they might have done in English. Erasmus was one of the most
famous men of his time. He was one who did much in his day to
free men's minds, one who helped men to think for themselves. So
although he had directly perhaps little to do with English
literature, it is well to remember him as the friend of More.
"My affection for the man is so great," wrote Erasmus once, "that
if he bade me dance a hornpipe, I should do at once what he bid
me."
Although More was so merry and witty, religion got a strong hold
upon him, and at one time he thought of becoming a monk. But his
friends persuaded him to give up that idea, and after a time he
decided to marry. He chose his wife in a somewhat quaint manner.
Among his friends there was a gentleman who had three daughters.
More liked the second one best, "for that he thought her the
fairest and best favoured."* But he married the eldest because
it seemed to him "that it would be both great grief and some
shame also to the oldest to see her younger sister preferred
before her in marriage. He then, of a certain pity, framed his
fancy toward her, and soon after married her."*
*W. Roper.
More was a great public man, but he was first a father and head
of his own house. He says: "While I spend almost all the day
abroad amongst others, and the residue at home among mine own, I
leave to myself, I mean to my book, no time. For when I come
home, I must commen with my wife, chatter with my children, and
talk with my servants. All the which things I reckon and account
among business, forasmuch as they must of necessity be done, and
done must they needs be unless a man will be stranger in his own
home. And in any wise a man must so fashion and order his
conditions and so appoint and dispose himself, that he be merry,
jocund and pleasant among them, whom either Nature hath provided
or chance hath made, or he himself hath chosen to be the fellows
and companions of his life, so that with too much gentle
behaviour and familiarity he do not mar them, and by too much
sufferance of his servants make them his masters."
More soon became a great man. Henry VII, indeed, did not love
him, so More did not rise to power while he lived. But Henry VII
died and his son Henry VIII ruled. The great Chancellor,
Cardinal Wolsey, became More's friend, and presently he was sent
on business for the King to Bruges.
It was while More was about the King's business in Belgium that
he wrote the greater part of the book by which he is best
remembered. This book is called Utopia. The name means
"nowhere," from two Greek words, "ou," no, and "topos," a place.
The Utopia, like so many other books of which we have read, was
the outcome of the times in which the writer lived. When More
looked round upon the England that he knew he saw many things
that were wrong. He was a man loyal to his King, yet he could
not pretend to think that the King ruled only for the good of his
people and not for his own pleasure. There was evil, misery, and
suffering in all the land. More longed to make people see that
things were wrong; he longed to set the wrong right. So to teach
men how to do this he invented a land of Nowhere in which there
was no evil or injustice, in which every one was happy and good.
He wrote so well about that make-believe land that from then till
now every one who read Utopia sees the beauty of More's idea.
But every one, too, thinks that this land where everything is
right is an impossible land. Thus More gave a new word to our
language, and when we think some idea beautiful but impossible we
call it "Utopian."
As it was the times that made More write his book, so it was the
times that gave him the form of it.
More makes believe that one day in Antwerp he saw a man "well
stricken in age, with a black sun-burned face, a long beard, and
a cloak cast homely about his shoulders, whom by his favour and
apparel forthwith I judged to be a mariner."
This man was called Raphael Hythlodaye and had been with Amerigo
Vespucci in the three last of his voyages, "saving that in the
last voyage he came not home again with him." For on that voyage
Hythlodaye asked to be left behind. And after Amerigo had gone
home he, with five friends, set forth upon a further voyage of
discovery. In their travels they saw many marvelous and fearful
things, and at length came to the wonderful land of Nowhere.
"But what he told us that he saw, in every country where he came,
it were very long to declare."
The Utopia is divided into two books. The first and shorter
gives us what we might call the machinery of the tale. It tells
of the meeting with Hythlodaye and More's first talk with him.
It is not until the beginning of the second book that we really
hear about Utopia. And I think if you read the book soon, I
would advise you to begin with the second part, which More wrote
first. In the second book we have most of the story, but the
first book helps us to understand More's own times and explains
what he was trying to do in writing his tale.
And even if you like the book now, you will both like and
understand it much better when you know a little about politics.
You will then see, too, how difficult it is to know when More is
in earnest and when he is merely poking fun, for More loved to
jest. Yet as his grandson, who wrote a life of him, tells us,
"Whatsoever jest he brought forth, he never laughed at any
himself, but spoke always so sadly, that few could see by his
look whether he spoke in earnest or in jest."
It would take too long to tell all about the wonderful island of
Utopia and its people, but I must tell you a little of it and how
they regarded money. All men in this land were equal. No man
was idle, neither was any man over-burdened with labor, for every
one had to work six hours a day. No man was rich, no man was
poor, for "though no man have anything, yet every man is rich,"
for the State gave him everything that he needed. So money was
hardly of any use, and gold and silver and precious jewels were
despised.
"In the meantime gold and silver, whereof money is made, they do
so use, as none of them doth more esteem it, than the very nature
of the thing deserveth. And then who doth not plainly see how
far it is under iron? As without the which men can no better
live than without fire and water; whereas to gold and silver
nature hath given no use that we may not well lack, if that the
folly of men had not set it in higher estimation for the rareness
sake. But, of the contrary part, Nature, as a most tender and
loving mother, hath placed the best and most necessary things
open abroad; as the air, the water, and the earth itself; and
hath removed and hid farthest from us vain and unprofitable
things."
Yet as other countries still prized money, gold and silver was
sometimes needed by the Utopians. But, thought the wise King and
his counselors, if we lock it up in towers and take great care of
it, the people may begin to think that gold is of value for
itself, they will begin to think that we are keeping something
precious from them. So to set this right they fell upon a plan.
It was this. "For whereas they eat and drink in earthen and
glass vessels, which indeed be curiously and properly made, and
yet be of very small value; of gold and silver they make other
vessels that serve for most vile uses, not only in their common
halls, but in every man's private house. Furthermore of the same
metals they make great chains and fetters and gyves, wherein they
tie their bondmen. Finally, whosoever for any offense be
infamed, by their ears hang rings of gold, upon their fingers
they wear rings of gold, and about their necks chains of gold;
and in conclusion their heads be tied about with gold.
"Thus, by all means that may be, they procure to have gold and
silver among them in reproach and infamy. And therefore these
metals, which other nations do as grievously and sorrowfully
forego, as in a manner from their own lives, if they should
altogether at once be taken from the Utopians, no man there would
think that he had lost the worth of a farthing.
*Hanging ornaments.
"Yea, you should have seen children also that had cast away their
pearls and precious stones, when they saw the like sticking upon
the Ambassadors' caps, dig and push their mothers under the
sides, saying thus to them: 'Look, mother, how great a lubber
doth yet wear pearls and precious stones, as though he were a
little child still.'
"But the mother, yea, and that also in good earnest: 'Peace,
son,' saith she, 'I think he be some of the Ambassadors' fools.'
"But when the Ambassadors had been there a day or two, and saw so
great abundance of gold so lightly esteemed, yea, in no less
reproach than it was with them in honour; and, besides that, more
gold in the chains and gyves of one fugitive bondman, than all
the costly ornaments of their three was worth; then began a-bate
their courage, and for very shame laid away all that gorgeous
array whereof they were so proud; and especially when they had
talked familiarly with the Utopians, and had learned all their
fashions and opinions. For they marvel that any man be so
foolish as to have delight and pleasure in the glistering of a
little trifling stone, which may behold any of the stars, or else
the sun itself; or that any man is so mad as to count himself the
nobler for the smaller or finer thread of wool, which self-same
wool (be it now in never so fine a spun thread) did once a sheep
wear, and yet was she all that time no other thing than a sheep."
More was not the first to write about a happy land where every
one lived in peace and where only justice reigned. And if he got
some of his ideas of the island from the discoveries of the New
World, he got many more from the New Learning. For long before,
Plato, a Greek writer, had told of a land very like Utopia in his
book called the Republic. And the New Learning had made that
book known to the people of England.
The Utopia was not written for one time or for one people. Even
before it was translated into English it had been translated into
Dutch, Italian, German, and French and was largely read all over
the Continent. It is still read to-day by all who are interested
in the life of the people, by all who think that in "this best of
all possible worlds" things might still be made better.
More wrote many other books both in English and in Latin and
besides being a busy author he led a busy life. For blustering,
burly, selfish King Henry loved the gentle witty lawyer, and
again and again made use of his wits. "And so from time to time
was he by the King advanced, continuing in his singular favour
and trusty service twenty years and above."*
*W. Roper.
It was not only for his business cleverness that King Henry loved
Sir Thomas. It was for his merry, witty talk. When business was
done and supper-time came, the King and Queen would call for him
"to be merry with them." Thus it came about that Sir Thomas
could hardly ever get home to his wife and children, where he
most longed to be. Then he began to pretend to be less clever
than he was, so that the King might not want so much of his
company. But Henry would sometimes follow More to his home at
Chelsea, where he had built a beautiful house. Sometimes he came
quite unexpectedly to dinner. Once he came, "and after dinner,
in a fair garden of his, walked with him by the space of an hour,
holding his arm about his neck." As soon as the King was gone,
More's son-in-law said to him that he should be happy seeing the
King was so friendly with him, for with no other man was he so
familiar, not even with Wolsey.
"I thank our Lord," answered More, "I find in his Grace a very
good lord indeed, and I believe he doth as singularly favour me
as any subject within the realm. Howbeit, son Roper, I may tell
thee, I have no cause to be proud thereof, for if my head would
win him a castle in France it should not fail to go."
And Sir Thomas was not wrong. Meanwhile, however, the King
heaped favor upon him. He became Treasurer of the Exchequer,
Speaker of the House of Commons, Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster, and last of all Lord Chancellor of England. This was
a very great honor. And as More was a layman the honor was for
him greater than usual. For he was the first layman to be made
Chancellor. Until then the Chancellor had always been some
powerful Churchman.
More was not eager for these honors. He would much rather have
lived a simple family life, but bluff King Hal was no easy master
to serve. If he chose to honor a man and set him high, that man
could but submit. So, as Erasmus says, More was dragged into
public life and honor, and being thus dragged in troubles were
not slow to follow.
Henry grew tired of his wife, Queen Catherine, but the Pope would
not allow him to divorce her so that he might marry another.
Then Henry quarreled with the Pope. The Pope, he said, should no
longer have power in England. He should no longer be head of the
Church, but the people must henceforth look to the King as such.
This More could not do. He tried to keep out of the quarrel. He
was true to his King as king, but he felt that he must be true to
his religion too. To him the Pope was the representative of
Christ on earth, and he could look to no other as head of the
Church. When first More had come into the King's service, Henry
bade him "first look unto God, and after God unto him." Of this
his Chancellor now reminded him, and laying down his seal of
office he went home, hoping to live the rest of his days in
peace.
But that was not to be. "It is perilous striving with princes,"
said a friend. " I would wish you somewhat to incline to the
King's pleasure. The anger of princes is death."
"Is that all?" replied More calmly; "then in good faith the
difference between you and me is but this, that I shall die to-
day and you to-morrow."
For fifteen months he was kept in the Tower. During all that
time his cheerful steadfastness did not waver. He wrote long
letters to his children, and chiefly to Meg, his best-loved
daughter. When pen and ink were taken away from him, he still
wrote with coal. In these months he became an old man, bent and
crippled with disease. But though his body was feeble his mind
was clear, his spirit bright as ever. No threats or promises
could shake his purpose. He could not and would not own Henry as
head of the Church.
At last the end came. In Westminster Hall More was tried for
treason and found guilty. From Westminster through the thronging
streets he was led back again to the Tower. In front of the
prisoner an ax was carried, the edge being turned towards him.
That was the sign to all who saw that he was to die.
As the sad procession reached the Tower Wharf there was a pause.
A young and beautiful woman darted from the crowd, and caring not
for the soldiers who surrounded him, unafraid of their swords and
halberds, she reached the old man's side, and threw herself
sobbing on his breast. In was Margaret, More's beloved daughter,
who, fearing that never again she might see her father, thus came
in the open street to say farewell. She clung to him and kissed
him in sight of all again and again, but no word could she say
save, "Oh, my father! oh, my father!"
Then Sir Thomas, holding her tenderly, comforted and blessed her,
and at last she took her arms from about his neck and he passed
on. But Margaret could not yet leave him. Scarcely had she gone
ten steps than suddenly she turned back. Once more breaking
through the guard she threw her arms about him. Not a word did
Sir Thomas say, but as he held her there the tears fell fast from
his eyes, while from the crowd around broke the sound of weeping.
Even the guards wept for pity. But at last, with full and heavy
hearts, father and daughter parted.
"Dear Meg," Sir Thomas wrote for the last time, "I never liked
your manner better towards me than when you kissed me last. For
I like when daughterly love and dear charity hath no leisure to
look to worldly courtesy."
More died for his faith, that of the Catholic Church. He, as
others, saw with grief that there was much within the Church that
needed to be made better, but he trusted it would be made better.
To break away from the Church, to doubt the headship of the Pope,
seemed to him such wickedness that he hated the Reformers and
wrote against them. And although in Utopia he allowed his happy
people to have full freedom in matters of religion, in real life
he treated sternly and even cruelly those Protestants with whom
he had to deal.
Yet the Reformation was stirring all the world, and while Sir
Thomas More cheerfully and steadfastly died for the Catholic
faith, there were others in England who as cheerfully lived,
worked, and died for the Protestant faith. We have little to do
with these Reformers in this book, except in so far as they touch
our literature, and it is to them that we owe our present Bible.
BOOKS TO READ
UPON a January day in 1527 two gaily decked barges met upon the
Thames. In the one sat a man of forty. His fair hair and beard
were already touched with gray. His face was grave and
thoughtful, and his eyes gave to it a curious expression, for the
right was dull and sightless, while with the left he looked about
him sharply. This was Sir John Russell, gentleman of the Privy
Chamber, soldier, ambassador, and favorite of King Henry VIII.
Fighting in the King's French wars he had lost the sight of his
right eye. Since then he had led a busy life in court and camp,
passing through many perilous adventures in the service of his
master, and now once again by the King's commands he was about to
set forth for Italy.
As the other barge drew near Russell saw that in it there sat
Thomas Wyatt, a young poet and courtier of twenty-three. He was
tall and handsome, and his thick dark hair framed a pale, clever
face which now looked listless. But as his dreamy poet's eyes
met those of Sir John they lighted up. The two men greeted each
other familiarly. "Whither away," cried Wyatt, for he saw that
Russell was prepared for a journey.
To Italy, the land of Poetry! The idea fired the poet's soul.
Petrarch, the great Italian poet, from whom you remember Chaucer
had learned much, and whom perhaps he had once met, made use of
this kind of poem. In his sonnets he told his love of a fair
lady, Laura, and made her famous for all time.
Of course, when Wyatt came to Italy Petrarch had long been dead.
But his poems were as living as in the days of Chaucer, and it
was from Petrarch's works that Wyatt learned this new kind of
poem, and it was he who first made use of it in English. He,
too, like Petrarch, addressed his sonnets to a lady, and the lady
he took for his love was Queen Anne Boleyn. As he is the first,
he is perhaps one of the roughest of our sonnet writers, but into
his sonnets he wrought something of manly strength. He does not
sigh so much as other poets of the age. He says, in fact, "If I
serve my lady faithfully I deserve reward." Here is one of his
sonnets, which he calls "The lover compareth his state to a ship
in perilous storm tossed by the sea."
Although Wyatt was our first sonnet writer, some of his poems
which are not sonnets are much more musical, especially some he
wrote for music. Perhaps best of all you will like his satire Of
the mean and sure estate. A satire is a poem which holds up to
scorn and ridicule wickedness, folly, or stupidity. It is the
sword of literature, and often its edge was keen, its point
sharp.
"My mother's maids when they do sew and spin,
They sing a song made of the fieldish mouse;
That for because her livelod* was but thin
Would needs go see her townish sister's house.
*Livelihood.
. . . . . . .
'My sister,' quoth she, 'hath a living good,
And hence from me she dwelleth not a mile,
In cold and storm she lieth warm and dry
In bed of down. The dirt doth not defile
Her tender foot; she labours not as I.
Richly she feeds, and at the rich man's cost;
And for her meat she need not crave nor cry.
By sea, by land, of delicates* the most,
Her caterer seeks, and spareth for no peril.
She feeds on boil meat, bake meat and roast,
And hath, therefore, no whit of charge or travail.'
*Delicacies.
. . . . . . .
So forth she goes, trusting of all this wealth
With her sister her part so for to shape,
That if she might there keep herself in health,
To live a Lady, while her life do last.
And to the door now is she come by stealth,
And with her foot anon she scrapes full fast.
Th' other for fear durst not well scarce appear,
Of every noise so was the wretch aghast.
At last she ask�d softly who was there;
And in her language as well as she could,
'Peep,' quoth the other, 'sister, I am here.'
'Peace,' quoth the town mouse, 'why speaketh thou so loud?'
But by the hand she took her fair and well.
'Welcome,' quoth she, 'my sister by the Rood.'
She feasted her that joy it was to tell
The fare they had, they drank the wine so clear;
And as to purpose now and then it fell,
So cheered her with, 'How, sister, what cheer.'
Amid this joy befell a sorry chance,
That welladay, the stranger bought full dear
The fare she had. For as she looked ascance,
Under a stool she spied two flaming eyes,
In a round head, with sharp ears. In France
Was never mouse so feared, for the unwise
Had not ere seen such beast before.
Yet had nature taught her after her guise
To know her foe, and dread him evermore.
The town mouse fled, she knew whither to go;
The other had no shift, but wonders sore,
Fear'd of her life! At home she wished her tho';
And to the door, alas! as she did skip
(The heaven it would, lo, and eke her chance was so)
At the threshold her sill foot did trip;
And ere she might recover it again,
The traitor Cat had caught her by the hip
And made her there against her will remain,
That had forgot her poor surety and rest,
For seeming wealth, wherein she thought to reign."
That is not the end of the poem. Wyatt points the moral.
"Alas," he says, "how men do seek the best and find the worst."
"Although thy head were hooped with gold," thou canst not rid
thyself of care. Content thyself, then, with what is allotted
thee and use it well.
*Anvil.
. . . . . . .
A hand, that taught what might be said in rhyme,
That Chaucer reft the glory of his wit.
A mark, the which (unperfected for time)
Some may approach; but never none shall hit!"
BOOKS TO READ
THE poet with whose verses the last chapter ended was named Henry
Howard, Earl of Surrey. The son of a noble and ancient house,
Surrey lived a gay life in court and camp. Proud, hot-headed,
quick-tempered, he was often in trouble, more than once in
prison. In youth he was called "the most foolish proud boy in
England," and at the age of thirty, still young and gay and full
of life, he died upon the scaffold. Accused of treason, yet
innocent, he fell a victim to "the wrath of princes," the wrath
of that hot-headed King Henry VIII. Surrey lived at the same
time as Wyatt and, although he was fourteen years younger, was
his friend. Together they are the forerunners of our modern
poetry. They are nearly always spoken of together--Wyatt and
Surrey--Surrey and Wyatt. Like Wyatt, Surrey followed the
Italian poets. Like Wyatt he wrote sonnets; but whereas Wyatt's
are rough, Surrey's are smooth and musical, although he does not
keep the rules about rime endings. One who wrote not long after
the time of Wyatt and Surrey says of them, "Sir Thomas Wyatt, the
elder, and Henry, Earl of Surrey, were the two chieftains, who,
having travelled in Italy, and there tasted the sweet and stately
measures and style of the Italian poesie . . . greatly polished
our rude and homely manner of vulgar poesie from that it had been
before, and for that cause may justly be said the first reformers
of our English metre and syle. . . . I repute them for the two
chief lanterns of light to all others that have since employed
their pens on English poesie."*
*W. J. Courthope.
*Mingles.
This is how he tells of the way in which Aeneas saved his old
father by carrying him on his shoulders out of the burning town
of Troy when "The crackling flame was heard throughout the walls,
and more and more the burning heat drew near."
*Companion.
**Bright.
***Mad.
Chapter XLI SPENSER--THE "SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR"
We call the whole group of authors who sprang up at this time the
Elizabethans, after the name of the Queen in whose reign they
lived and wrote. And to those of us who know even a very little
of the time, the word calls up a brilliant vision. Great names
come crowding to our minds, names of poets, dramatists,
historians, philosophers, divines. It would be impossible to
tell of all in this book, so we must choose the greatest from the
noble array. And foremost among them comes Edmund Spenser, for
"the glory of the new literature broke in England with Edmund
Spenser."*
Edmund Spenser was born in London in 1552, and was the son of a
poor clothworker or tailor. He went to school at the Merchant
Taylors' School, which had then been newly founded. That his
father was very poor we know, for Edmund Spenser's name appears
among "certain poor scholars of the schools about London" who
received money and clothes from a fund left by a rich man to help
poor children at school.
Who Rosalind really was no one knows. She would never have been
heard of had not Spenser taken her for his lady and made songs to
her. Spenser's love for Rosalind was, however, more real than
the fashionable poet's passion. He truly loved Rosalind, but she
did not love him, and she soon married some one else. Then all
his joy in the summer and the sunshine was made dark.
*Early.
**Shepherd's Calendar, December.
Yet when, a few years later, Spenser published his first great
poem, it did not tell of courts or courtiers, but of simple
country sights and sounds. This book is called the Shepherd's
Calendar, as it contains twelve poems, one for every month of the
year.
The Shepherd's Calendar made the new poet famous. Spenser was
advanced at court, and soon after went to Ireland in the train of
the Lord-Deputy as Secretary of State. At that time Ireland was
filled with storm and anger, with revolt against English rule,
with strife among the Irish nobles themselves. Spain also was
eagerly looking to Ireland as a point from which to strike at
England. War, misery, poverty were abroad in all the land. Yet
amid the horrid sights and sounds of battle Spenser found time to
write.
The two great men, thus alone among the wild Irish, made friends,
and they had many a talk together. There within the gray stone
walls of the old ivy-covered castle Spenser read the first part
of his book, the Faery Queen, to Raleigh. Spenser had long been
at work upon this great poem. It was divided into parts, and
each part was called a book. Three books were now finished, and
Raleigh, loud in his praises of them, persuaded the poet to bring
them over to England to have them published.
*River Awbeg.
**Strain.
But, says an old writer, "he was so busied, belike about matters
of higher concernment, that Spenser received no reward."* In the
long-run, however, he did receive 50 pounds a year, as much as
400 pounds would be now. But it did not seem to Spenser to be
enough to allow him to give up his post in Ireland and live in
England. So back to Ireland he went once more, with a grudge
in his heart against Lord Burleigh.
*Thomas Fuller.
SPENSER'S plan for the Faery Queen was a very great one. He
meant to write a poem in twelve books, each book containing the
adventures of a knight who was to show forth one virtue. And if
these were well received he purposed to write twelve more. Only
the first three books were as yet published, but they made him
far more famous than the Shepherd's Calendar had done. For never
since Chaucer had such poetry been written. In the Faery Queen
Spenser has, as he says, changed his "oaten reed" for "trumpets
stern," and sings no longer now of shepherds and their loves, but
of "knights and ladies gentle deeds" of "fierce wars and faithful
loves."
The first three books tell the adventures of the Red Cross Knight
St. George, or Holiness; of Sir Guyon, or Temperance; and of the
Lady Britomartis, or Chastity. The whole poem is an allegory.
Everywhere we are meant to see a hidden meaning. But sometimes
the allegory is very confused and hard to follow. So at first,
in any case, it is best to enjoy the story and the beautiful
poetry, and not trouble about the second meaning. Spenser
plunges us at once into the very middle of the story. He begins:
And by the side of this Knight rode a lovely Lady upon a snow-
white ass. Her dress, too, was snow-white, but over it she wore
a black cloak, "as one that inly mourned," and it "seemed in her
heart some hidden care she had."
So the story begins; but why these two, the grave and gallant
Knight and the sad and lovely Lady, are riding forth together we
should not know until the middle of the seventh canto, were it
not for a letter which Spenser wrote to Raleigh and printed in
the beginning of his book. In it he tells us not only who these
two are, but also his whole great design. He writes this letter,
he says, "knowing how doubtfully all allegories may be
construed," and this book of his "being a continued allegory, or
dark conceit," he thought it good to explain. Having told how he
means to write of twenty-four knights who shall represent twenty-
four virtues, he goes on to tell us that the Faery Queen kept her
yearly feast twelve days, upon which twelve days the occasions of
the first twelve adventures happened, which, being undertaken by
twelve knights, are told of in these twelve books.
The story goes on to tell how the Knight, who is the Red Cross
Knight St. George, and the Lady, who is called Una, rode on
followed by the Dwarf. At length in the wide forest they lost
their way and came upon the lair of a terrible She-Dragon. "Fly,
fly," quoth then the fearful Dwarf, "this is no place for living
men."
There was a fearful fight between the Knight and the Dragon,
whose name is Error, but at length the Knight conquered. The
terrible beast lay dead "reft of her baleful head," and the
Knight, mounting upon his charger, once more rode onwards with
his Lady.
The Knight and this aged man greeted each other fair and
courteously, and as evening was now fallen the godly father bade
the travelers come to his Hermitage for the night. This the
Knight and Lady gladly did, and soon were peacefully sleeping
beneath the humble roof.
But the seeming godly father was a wicked magician. While his
guests slept he wove evil spells about them, and calling a wicked
dream he bade it sit at the Knight's head and whisper lies to
him. This the wicked dream did till that it made the Knight
believe his Lady to be bad and false. Then early in the morning
the Red Cross Knight rose and, believing his Lady to be unworthy,
he rode sadly away, leaving her alone.
The Red Cross Knight fought and conquered Sansfoy. Then he rode
onward with the dead giant's companion, the lady Duessa, whom he
believed to be good because he was "too simple and too true" to
know her wicked.
Meanwhile Una, forsaken and woeful, wandered far and wide seeking
her lost Knight. But nowhere could she hear tidings of him. At
length one day, weary of her quest, she got off her ass and lay
down to rest in the thick wood, where "her angel's face made a
sunshine in the shady place."
But as he came near the sleeping Lady the Lion's rage suddenly
melted. Instead of killing Una, he licked her weary feet and
white hands with fawning tongue. From being her enemy he became
her guardian. And so for many a day the Lion stayed with Una,
guarding her from all harm. But in her wanderings she at length
met with Sansloy, the brother of Sansfoy, who killed the Lion and
carried Una off into the darksome wood.
But here in her direst need Una found new friends in a troupe of
fauns and satyrs who were playing in the forest.
Then the fauns and satyrs gathered round the Lady, wondering at
her beauty, pitying her "fair blubbered face."
But Una shook with fear. These terrible shapes, half goat, half
human, struck her dumb with horror: "Ne word to peak, ne joint
to move she had."
They kneel upon the ground, they kiss her feet, and at last, sure
that they mean her no harm, Una rises and goes with them.
Meanwhile Duessa had led the Red Cross Knight to the house of
Pride.
Here the Knight met Sansjoy, the third of the Saracen brothers,
and another fearful fight took place.
At last a charmed cloud hid the Saracen from the Knight's sight.
So the fight ended, and the Knight, sorely wounded, was "laid in
sumptuous bed, where many skilful leeches him abide."
But as he lay there weak and ill the Dwarf came to warn him, for
he had spied
When the false Duessa discovered that the Red Cross Knight had
fled, she followed him and found him resting beside a fountain.
Not knowing that the water was enchanted, he drank of it, and at
once all his manly strength ebbed away, and he became faint and
feeble. Then, when he was too weak to hold a sword or spear, he
saw a fearful sight:--
As the Giant struck at him, the Knight leapt aside and the blow
fell harmless. But so mighty was it that the wind of it threw
him to the ground, where he lay senseless. And ere he woke out
of his swoon the Giant took him up, and
Duessa then became the Giant's lady. "He gave her gold and
purple pall to wear," and set a triple crown upon her head. For
steed he gave her a fearsome dragon with fiery eyes and seven
heads, so that all who saw her went in dread and awe.
The Dwarf, seeing his master thus overthrown and made prisoner,
gathered his armor and set forth to tell his evil tidings and
find help. He had not gone far before he met the Lady Una. To
her he told his sad news, and she with grief in her heart turned
with him to find the dark dungeon in which her Knight lay. On
her way she met another knight. This was Prince Arthur. And he,
learning of her sorrow, went with her promising aid. Guided by
the Dwarf they reached the castle of the Giant, and here a
fearful fight took place in which Prince Arthur conquered
Duessa's Dragon and killed the Giant. Then he entered the
castle.
And what was strange and terrible about this old man was that his
head was twisted upon his shoulders, so that although he walked
towards the knight his face looked backward.
Seeing his gray hairs and venerable look Prince Arthur asked him
gently where all the folk of the castle were.
"I cannot tell," answered the old man. And to every question he
replied, "I cannot tell," until the knight, impatient of delay,
seized the keys from his arm. Door after door the Prince Arthur
opened, seeing many strange, sad sights. But nowhere could he
find the captive Knight.
But there was a little grating in the door through which Prince
Arthur called. A hollow, dreary, murmuring voice replied. It
was the voice of the Red Cross Knight, which, when the champion
heard, "with furious force and indignation fell" he rent that
iron door and entered in.
Once more the Red Cross Knight was free and reunited to his Lady,
while the false Duessa was unmasked and shown to be a bad old
witch, who fled away "to the wasteful wilderness apace."
But the Red Cross Knight was still so weak and feeble that
Despair almost persuaded him to kill himself. Seeing this, Una
led him to the house of Holiness, where he stayed until once more
he was strong and well. Here he learned that he was St. George.
"Thou," he is told,
"Shalt be a saint, and thine own nation's friend
And patron. Thou St. George shalt call�d be,
St. George of merry England, the sign of victory."
Once more strong of arm, full of new courage, the Knight set
forth with Una, and soon they reached her home, where the
dreadful Dragon raged.
Here the most fierce fight of all takes place. Three days it is
renewed, and on the third day the Dragon is conquered.
Thus all ends happily. The aged King and Queen are rescued from
the brazen tower in which the Dragon had imprisoned them, and Una
and the Knight are married.
THERE are so many books now published which tell the stories of
the Faery Queen, and tell them well, that you may think I hardly
need have told one here. But few of these books give the poet's
own words, and I have told the story here giving quotations from
the poem in the hope that you will read them and learn from them
to love Spenser's own words. I hope that long after you have
forgotten my words you will remember Spenser's, that they will
remain in your mind as glowing word-pictures, and make you
anxious to read more of the poem from which they are taken.
Spenser has been called the poet's poet,* he might also be called
the painter's poet, for on every page almost we find a word-
picture, rich in color, rich in detail. Each person as he comes
upon the scene is described for us so that we may see him with
our mind's eye. The whole poem blazes with color, it glows and
gleams with the glamor of fairyland. Spenser more than any other
poet has the old Celtic love of beauty, yet so far as we know
there was in him no drop of Celtic blood. He loved neither the
Irishman nor Ireland. To him his life there was an exile, yet
perhaps even in spite of himself he breathed in the land of
fairies and of "little people" something of their magic: his
fingers, unwittingly perhaps, touched the golden and ivory gate
so that he entered in and saw.
*Charles Lamb.
Spenser invented for himself a new stanza of nine lines and made
it famous, so that we call it after him, the Spenserian Stanza.
It was like Chaucer's stanza of seven lines, called the Rhyme
Royal, with two lines more added.
Spenser admired Chaucer above all poets. He called him "The Well
of English undefiled,"* and after many hundred years we still
feel the truth of the description. He uses many of Chaucer's
words, which even then had grown old-fashioned and were little
used. So much is this so that a glossary written by a friend of
Spenser, in which old words were explained, was published with
the Shepherd's Calendar. But whether old or new, Spenser's power
of using words and of weaving them together was wonderful.
*Swoon.
Just before his marriage Spenser finished three more books of the
Faery Queen, and the following year he took them to London to
publish them. The three books were on Friendship, on Justice,
and on Courtesy. They were received as joyfully as the first
three. The poet remained for nearly a year in London still
writing busily. Then he returned to Ireland. There he passed a
few more years, and then came the end.
As men count years, he was still young, for he was only forty-
seven. He had dreamed that he had still time before him to make
life a success. For as men counted success in those days,
Spenser was a failure. He had failed to make a name among the
statesmen of the age. He failed to make a fortune, he lived poor
and he died poor. As a poet he was a sublime success. He
dedicated the Faery Queen to Elizabeth "to live with the eternity
of her fame," and it is not too much to believe that even should
the deeds of Elizabeth be forgotten the fame of Spenser will
endure. And the poets of Spenser's own day knew that in him they
had lost a master, and they mourned for him as such. They buried
him in Westminster not far from Chaucer. His bier was carried by
poets, who, as they stood beside his grave, threw into it poems
in which they told of his glory and their own grief. And so they
left "The Prince of Poets in his tyme, whose divine spirit needs
no other witnesse than the workes which he left behind him."*
BOOKS TO READ
Tales from Spenser (Told to Children Series). Una and the Red
Cross Knight, by N. G. Royde Smith (has many quotations). Tales
from the Faerie Queene, by C. L. Thomson (prose). The Faerie
Queene (verse, sixteenth century spelling). Faerie Queene, book
I, by Professor W. H. Hudson. Complete Works (Globe Edition),
edited by R. Morris. Britomart, edited by May E. Litchfield, is
the story of Britomart taken from scattered portions in books
III, IV, and V in original poetry, spelling modernized.
So year after year went on. By slow degrees times changed, and
our literature changed with the times. But looking backward we
can see that the poet is the development of the minstrel, the
prose writer the development of the monkish chronicler and
copyist. Prose at first was only used for grave matters, for
history, for religious works, for dry treatises which were hardly
literature, which were not meant for enjoyment but only for use
and for teaching. But by degrees people began to use prose for
story-telling, for enjoyment. More and more prose began to be
written for amusement until at last it has quite taken the place
of poetry. Nowadays many people are not at all fond of poetry.
They are rather apt to think that a poetry book is but dull
reading, and they much prefer plain prose. It may amuse those
who feel like that to remember that hundreds of years ago it was
just the other way round. Then it was prose that was considered
dull--hence we have the word prosy.
All poetry was at first written to be sung, sung too perhaps with
some gesture, so that the hearers might the better understand the
story. Then by degrees poets got further and further away from
that, until poets like Spenser wrote with no such idea. But
while poets like Spenser wrote their stories to be read, another
class of poets was growing up who intended their poems to be
spoken and acted. These were the dramatists.
So you see that the minstrel stream divided into two. There was
now the poet who wrote his poems to be read in quiet and the poet
who wrote his, if not to be sung, at least to be spoken aloud.
But there had been, as we have seen, a time when the minstrel and
the monkish stream had touched, a time when the monk, using the
minstrel's art, had taught the people through ear and eye
together. For the idea of the Miracle and Morality plays was,
you remember, to teach. So, long after the monks had ceased to
act, those who wrote poems to be acted felt that they must teach
something. Thus after the Miracle plays came the Moralities,
which sometimes were very long and dull. They were followed by
Interludes which were much the same as Moralities but were
shorter, and as their name shows were meant to come in the middle
of something else, for the word comes from two Latin words,
"inter" between and "ludus" a play. An Interlude may have been
first used, perhaps, as a kind of break in a long feast.
The Miracle plays had only been acted once a year, first by the
monks and later by the trade guilds. But the taste for plays
grew, and soon bands of players strolled about the country acting
in towns and villages. These strolling players often made a good
deal of money. But though the people crowded willingly to see
and hear, the magistrates did not love these players, and they
were looked upon as little better than rogues and vagabonds.
Then it became the fashion for great lords to have their own
company of players, and they, when their masters did not need
them, also traveled about to the surrounding villages acting
wherever they went. This taste for acting grew strong in the
people of England. And if in the life of the Middle Ages there
was always room for story-telling, in the life of Tudor England
there was always room for acting and shows.
*Coleridge.
Not being a very good scholar, Ralph gets some one else to write
a love-letter for him, but when he copies it he puts all the
stops in the wrong places, which makes the sense quite different
from what he had intended, and instead of being full of pretty
things the letter is full of insults.
Dame Custance will have nothing to say to such a stupid lover, "I
will not be served with a fool in no wise. When I choose a
husband I hope to take a man," she says. In revenge for her
scorn Ralph Roister Doister threatens to burn the dame's house
down, and sets off to attack it with his servants. The widow,
however, meets him with her handmaidens. There is a free fight
(which, no doubt, the schoolboy actors enjoyed), but the widow
gets the best of it, and Ralph is driven off.
Our first real tragedy was not written until ten years after our
first comedy. This first tragedy was written by Thomas Norton
and Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset. It was acted by the
gentlemen of the Inner Temple "before the Queen's most excellent
Majestie in her highness' Court of Whitehall the 18th day of
January, 1561."
So our early tragedies were all taken from sad stories in the old
Chronicle histories. And this first tragedy, written by Norton
and Sackville, is called Gorboduc, and is founded upon the legend
of Gorboduc, King of Britain. The story is told, though not
quite in the same way, by Geoffrey of Monmouth, our old friend,
by Matthew of Westminster, and by others of the old chroniclers.
For in writing a poem or play it is not necessary to keep
strictly to history. As Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser's friend,
says: "Do they not know that a tragedy is tied to the laws of
Poesie and not of History, not bound to follow the story, but,
having liberty, either to fain a quite new matter, or to frame
the history to the most tragical convenience?"*
The story goes that Gorboduc, King of Britain, divided his realm
during his lifetime between his sons Ferrex and Porrex. But the
brothers quarreled, and the younger killed the elder. The
mother, who loved her eldest son most, then killed the younger in
revenge. Next the people, angry at such cruelty, rose in
rebellion and killed both father and mother. The nobles then
gathered and defeated the rebels. And lastly, for want of an
heir to the throne, "they fell to civil war," and the land for a
long time was desolate and miserable.
That some people felt the absurdity of this we learn from a book
by Sir Philip Sidney. In it he says, "You shall have Asia of the
one side, and Affrick of the other, and so many other under
kingdoms, that the Player, when he cometh in, must ever begin
with telling where he is, or else the tale will not be conceived.
Now you shall have three ladies walk to gather flowers, and then
we must believe the stage to be a garden. By and by, we hear
news of shipwreck in the same place, and then we are to blame if
we accept it not for a Rock. Upon the back of that, comes out a
hideous Monster, with fire and smoke, and then the miserable
beholders are bound to take it for a cave. While in the meantime
two Armies fly in, represented with four swords and bucklers, and
then what hard heart will not receive it for a pitched field!"*
And now that the love of plays and shows had grown so great that
it had been found worth while to build special places in which to
act, you may be sure that there was no lack of play-writers.
There were indeed many of whom I should like to tell you, but in
this book there is no room to tell of all. To show you how many
dramatists arose in this great acting age I will give you a list
of the greatest, all of whom were born between 1552 and 1585.
After Nicholas Udall and Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, the
writers of our first comedy and first tragedy, there came:--
ONE April morning nearly three hundred and fifty years ago there
was a stir and bustle in a goodly house in the little country
town of Stratford-on-Avon. The neighbors went in and out with
nods and smiles and mysterious whisperings. Then there was a
sound of clinking of glasses and of laughter, for it became known
that to John and Mary Shakespeare a son had been born, and
presently there was brought to be shown to the company "The
infant mewling and puking in the nurse's arms." It was a great
event for the father and mother, something of an event for
Stratford-on-Avon, for John Shakespeare was a man of importance.
He was a well-to-do merchant, an alderman of the little town. He
seems to have done business in several ways, for we are told that
he was a glover, a butcher, and a corn and wool dealer. No doubt
he grew his own corn, and reared and killed his own sheep, making
gloves from the skins, and selling the wool and flesh. His wife,
too, came of a good yeoman family who farmed their own land, and
no doubt John Shakespeare did business with his kinsfolk in both
corn and sheep. And although he could perhaps not read, and
could not write even his own name, he was a lucky business man
and prosperous. So he was well considered by his neighbors and
had a comfortable house in Henley Street, built of rough
plastered stone and dark strong wood work.
And now this April morning John Shakespeare's heart was glad.
Already he had had two children, two little girls, but they had
both died. Now he had a son who would surely live to grow strong
and great, to be a comfort in his old age and carry on his
business when he could no longer work. It was a great day for
John Shakespeare. How little he knew that it was a great day for
all the world and for all time.
Three days after he was born the tiny baby was christened. And
the name his father and mother gave him was William. After this
three months passed happily. Then one of the fearful plagues
which used to sweep over the land, when people lived in dark and
dirty houses in dark and dirty streets, attacked Stratford-on-
Avon. Jolly John Shakespeare and Mary, his wife, must have been
anxious of heart, fearful lest the plague should visit their
home. John did what he could to stay it. He helped the stricken
people with money and goods, and presently the plague passed
away, and the life of the dearly loved little son was safe.
Years passed on, and the house in Henley Street grew ever more
noisy with chattering tongues and pattering feet, until little
Will had two sisters and two brothers to keep him company.
Then, although his father and mother could neither of them write
themselves, they decided that their children should be taught, so
William was sent to the Grammar School. He was, I think, fonder
of the blue sky and the slow-flowing river and the deep dark
woods that grew about his home that of the low-roofed schoolroom.
He went perhaps
*Ben Jonson.
**John Aubrey.
*John Aubrey.
He knew the lore of fields and woods, of trees and flowers, and
birds and beasts. He sang of
"the daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty."*
*Winter's Tale.
*Winter's Tale.
He knew that "a lapwing runs close by the ground," that choughs
are "russet-pated." He knew all the beauty that is to be found
throughout the country year.
*Archdeacon Davies.
*Twelfth Night.
The lady whom Shakespeare married was named Anne Hathaway. She
came of farmer folk like Shakespeare's own mother. She was eight
years older than her boyish lover, but beyond that we know little
of Anne Hathaway, for Shakespeare never anywhere mentions his
wife.
A little while after their marriage a daughter was born to Anne
and William Shakespeare. Nearly two years later a little boy and
girl came to them. The boy died when he was about eleven, and
only the two little girls, Judith and Susanna, lived to grow up.
In spite of the fact that Shakespeare had now a wife and children
to look after, he had not settled down. He was still wild, and
being caught once more in stealing game he left Stratford and
went to London.
When you come to know Shakespeare's plays well you will find it
very interesting to follow his stories to their sources. That of
King Lear, which is one of Shakespeare's great romantic
historical plays, is, for instance, to be found in Geoffrey of
Monmouth, in Wace's Brut, and in Layamon's Brut. But it was from
none of these that Shakespeare took the story, but from the
chronicle of a man named Holinshed who lived and wrote in the
time of Queen Elizabeth, he in his turn having taken it from some
one of the earlier sources.
For, after all, in spite of the thousands of books that have been
written since the world began, there are only a certain number of
stories which great writers have told again and again in varying
ways. One instance of this we saw when in the beginning of this
book we followed the story of Arthur.
*Macbeth.
Shakespeare's men and women speak and act and feel in the main as
we might now. Many of his people we feel are our brothers and
sisters. And to this human interest he adds something more, for
he leads us too through "unpathed waters" to "the undreamed
shores" of fairyland.
And so although outside his work we get only glimpses of the man,
these glimpses taken together with his writings show us Will
Shakespeare as a big-hearted man, a man who understood all and
forgave all. He understood the little joys and sorrows that make
up life. He understood the struggle to be good, and would not
scorn people too greatly when they were bad. "Children, we feel
sure," says one of the latest writers about him, "did not stop
their talk when he came near them, but continued in the happy
assurance that it was only Master Shakespeare."* And so if
children find his plays hard to read yet a while they may at
least learn to know his stories and learn to love his name--it is
only Master Shakespeare. But they must remember that learning to
know Shakespeare's stories through the words of other people is
only half a joy. The full joy of Shakespeare can only come when
we are able to read his plays in his very own words. But that
will come all the more easily and quickly to us if we first know
his stories well.
*Prof. Raleigh.
And so our greatest poet lies not beneath the great arch of
Westminster but in the quiet church of the little country town in
which he was born.
The merchant of Venice was a rich young man called Antonio. When
the story opens he had ventured all his money in trading
expeditions to the East and other lands. In two months' time he
expects the return of his ships and hopes then to make a great
deal of money. But meantime he has none to spare, and when his
great friend Bassanio comes to borrow of him he cannot give him
any.
But Bassanio is uneasy. "I like not fair terms," he says, "and a
villain mind. You shall not seal to such a bond for me." But
Antonio insists and the bond is sealed.
But Jessica does not join her father in his hatred of all
Christians. She indeed has given her heart to one of the hated
race, and well knowing that her father will never allow her to
marry him, she, that night while he is at supper with Bassanio,
dresses herself in boy's clothes and steals away, taking with her
a great quantity of jewels and money.
When Shylock discovers his loss he is mad with grief and rage.
He runs about the streets crying for justice.
And all the wild boys in Venice follow after him mocking him and
crying, "His stones, his daughter and his ducats!"
Then Antonio's friends shake their heads and say, "Let him beware
the hatred of the Jew." They look gravely at each other, for it
is whispered abroad that "Antonio hath a ship of rich lading
wreck'd on the narrow seas."
Then let Antonio beware.
"Thou wilt not take his flesh," says one of the young merchant's
friends to Shylock. "What's that good for?"
"To bait fish withal," snarls the Jew. "If it will feed nothing
else it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered
me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains,
scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends,
heated mine enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions,
senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with
the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the
same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a
Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle
us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? If you
wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest,
we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what
is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what
should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge.
The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard
but I will better the instruction."
When a suitor presents himself and asks for the lady's hand in
marriage, he is shown three caskets, one of gold, one of silver,
and one of lead. Upon the golden one is written the words, "Who
chooseth me, shall gain what many men desire"; upon the silver
casket are the words, "Who chooseth me, shall get as much as he
deserves"; and upon the leaden one, "Who chooseth me, must give
and hazard all he hath." And only whoso chooseth aright, each
suitor is told, can win the lady.
This trial of all suitors had been ordered by Portia's father ere
he died, so that only a worthy and true man might win his
daughter. Some suitors choose the gold, some the silver casket,
but all, princes, barons, counts, and dukes, alike choose wrong.
she says.
And all for three thousand ducats! "Oh," cries Portia when she
hears, "what a paltry sum! Pay the Jew ten times the money and
tear up the bond, rather than that Antonio shall lose a single
hair through Bassanio's fault."
"It is no use," she is told, "Shylock will have his bond, and
nothing but his bond."
But Portia has no mind to sit at home and do nothing while her
husband's friend is in danger of his life. As soon as Bassanio
has gone, she gives her house into the keeping of Lorenzo and
sets out for Venice. From her cousin, the great lawyer Bellario,
she borrows lawyer's robes for herself, and those of a lawyer's
clerk for Nerissa. And thus disguised, they reach Venice safely.
This part of the story has brought us to the fourth act of the
play, and when the curtain rises on this act we see the Court of
Justice in Venice. The Duke and all his courtiers are present,
the prisoner Antonio, with Bassanio, and many others of his
friends. Shylock is called in. The Duke tries to soften the
Jew's heart and make him turn to mercy, in vain. Bassanio also
tries in vain, and still Bellario, to whom the Duke has sent for
aid, comes not.
"ANTONIO. I do.
PORTIA. And you must cut this flesh from off his breast;
The law allows it; and the court awards it.
PORTIA. Soft;
The Jew shall have all justice;--soft;--no haste;--
He shall have nothing but the penalty.
So, seeing himself beaten on all points, the Jew would leave the
court. But not yet is he allowed to go. Not until he has been
fined for attempting to take the life of a Venetian citizen, not
until he is humiliated, and so heaped with disgrace and insult
that we are sorry for him, is he allowed to creep away.
In the last act of the play all the friends are gathered again at
Belmont. After some merry teasing upon the subject of the rings
the truth is told, and Bassanio and Gratiano learn that the
skillful lawyer and his clerk were none other than their young
and clever wives.
BOOKS TO READ
*Fuller.
It will be a long time before you will care to read Every Man in
His Humour, for there is a great deal in it that you would
neither understand nor like. It is a play of the manners and
customs of Elizabethan times which are so unlike ours that we
have little sympathy with them. And that is the difference
between Ben Jonson and Shakespeare. Shakespeare, although he
wrote of his own time, wrote for all time; Jonson wrote of his
own time for his own time. Yet, in Every Man in His Humour there
is at least one character worthy to live beside Shakespeare's,
and that is the blustering, boastful Captain Bobadill. He talks
very grandly, but when it comes to fighting, he thinks it best to
run away and live to fight another day. If only to know Captain
Bobadill it will repay you to read Every Man in His Humour when
you grow up.
EDWARD KNOWELL. Sir, keep your hanging good for some greater
matter, for I assure you that was he.
BOBADILL. Had I thought it had been he, he must not have gone
so. But I can hardly be induced to believe it was he yet.
DOWNRIGHT. Prate again, as you like this, you foist* you. Your
consort is gone. Had he staid he had shared with you, sir.
[Exit DOWNRIGHT.
EDWARD KNOWELL. No, fait, it's an ill day, Captain, never reckon
it other. But, say you were bound to the peace, the law allows you
to defend yourself. That will prove but a poor excuse.
EDWARD KNOWELL. Ay, like enough, I have heard of many that have
been beaten under a planet. Go, get you to a surgeon! 'Slid! and
these be your tricks, your passadoes, and your montantos, I'll
none of them."
*Fraud.
When Every Man in His Humour was acted, Shakespeare took a part
in it. He and Jonson must have met each other often, must have
known each other well. At the Mermaid Tavern all the wits used
to gather. For there was a kind of club founded by Sir Walter
Raleigh, and here the clever men of the day met to smoke and
talk, and drink not a little. And among all the clever men
Jonson soon came to be acknowledged as the king and leader. We
have a pleasant picture of these friendly meetings by a man who
lived then. "Many were the wit-combats," he says, "betwixt
Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, which two I behold like a Spanish
great gallion and an English Man of War: Master Jonson (like the
former) was built far higher in learning; solid, but slow in his
performances. Shakespeare, with the English Man of War, lesser
in bulk but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack
about, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his
wit and invention."*
So the years went on. Big Ben wrote and fought, quarreled and
made friends, drank and talked, living always on the verge of
poverty. At length, in 1603, the great Queen Elizabeth died, and
James of Scotland came to the English throne. All the way as he
journeyed he was greeted with rejoicing. There were everywhere
plays and feasts given in his honor, and soon after he arrived in
London a Masque written by Jonson was played before him. The new
king was fond of such entertainments. He smiled upon Master Ben
Jonson, and life became for him easier and brighter.
But shortly after this, Jonson, with two others, wrote a play in
which some things were said against the Scots. With a Scottish
king surrounded by Scottish lords, that was dangerous. All three
soon found themselves in prison and came near losing their noses
and ears. This was not the first time that Ben had been in
prison, for soon after Every Man in His Humour was acted, he
quarreled for some unknown reason with another actor. In the
foolish fashion of the day they fought a duel over it, and Ben
killed the other man. For this he was seized and put in prison,
and just escaped being hanged. He was left off only with the
loss of all his goods and a brand on the left thumb.
Now once more Jonson escaped. When he was set free, his friends
gave a great feast to show their joy. But Ben had not learned
his lesson, and at least once again he found himself in prison
because of something he had written.
But in spite of these things the King continued to smile upon Ben
Jonson. He gave him a pension and made him poet laureate, and it
was now that he began to write the Masques for which he became
famous. These Masques were dainty poetic little plays written
for the court and often acted by the Queen and her ladies. There
was much singing and dancing in them, and the dresses of the
actors were gorgeous beyond description. And besides this, while
the ordinary stage was still without any scenery, Inigo Jones,
the greatest architect in the land, joined Ben Jonson in making
his plays splendid by inventing scenery for them. This scenery
was beautiful and elaborate, and was sometimes changed two or
three times during the play. One of these plays called The
Masque of Blackness was acted by the Queen and her ladies in
1605, and when we read the description of the scenery it makes us
wonder and smile too at the remembrance of Wall and the Man in
the Moon of which Shakespeare made such fun a few years earlier,
and of which you will read in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
ALTHOUGH Ben Jonson's days ended sadly, although his later plays
showed failing powers, he left behind him unfinished a Masque
called The Sad Shepherd which is perhaps more beautiful and more
full of music than anything he ever wrote. For Ben's charm did
not lie in the music of his words but in the strength of his
drawing of character. As another poet has said of him, "Ben as a
rule--a rule which is proved by the exception--was one of the
singers who could not sing; though, like Dryden, he could intone
most admirably."*
*Swinburne.
The Sad Shepherd is a tale of Robin Hood. Here once more we find
an old story being used again, for we have already heard of Robin
Hood in the ballads. Robin Hood makes a great fest to all the
shepherds and shepherdesses round about. All are glad to come,
save one Aeglamon, the Sad Shepherd, whose love, Earine, has, he
believes, been drowned. But later in the play we learn that
Earine is not dead, but that a wicked witch, Mother Maudlin, has
enchanted her, and shut her up in a tree. She had done this in
order to force Earine to give up Aeglamon, her true lover, and
marry her own wretched son Lorel.
When the play begins, Aeglamon passes over the stage mourning for
his lost love.
Robin Hood has left Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, Little John, and all
his merry men to hunt the deer and make ready the feast. And
Tuck says:
So some make ready the bower, the tables and the seats, while
Maid Marian, Little John and others set out to hunt. Presently
they return successful, having killed a fine stag. Robin, too,
comes home, and after loving greetings, listens to the tale of
the hunt. Then Marian tells how, when the huntsmen cut up the
stag, they threw the bone called the raven's bone to one that sat
and croaked for it.
Such is their love for each other. They are "The turtles of the
wood," "The billing pair." No one is more astonished than Robin
Hood, as he cries:
But Maid Marian only scolds the more, and at last goes away
leaving the others in sad bewilderment. Of course this was not
Maid Marian at all, but Mother Maudlin, the old witch, who had
taken her form in order to make mischief.
Meanwhile the real Maid Marian discovers that the venison has
been sent away to Mother Maudlin's. With tears in her eyes she
declares that she gave no such orders, and Scathlock is sent to
bring it back.
When Mother Maudlin comes to thank Maid Marian for her present,
she is told that no such present was ever intended, and so she in
anger curses the cook, casting spells upon him:
And here the play breaks off suddenly, for Jonson died and left
it so. It was finished by another writer* later on, but with
none of Jonson's skill, and reading the continuation we feel that
all the interest is gone. However, you will be glad to know that
everything comes right. The good people get happily married and
all the bad people become good, even the wicked old witch, Mother
Maudlin.
*F. G. Waldron.
Thomas Fuller, who wrote the book in which this story is found,
was only a boy of ten when Raleigh died, so he could not have
known the great man himself, but he must have heard many stories
about him from those who had, and we need not disbelieve this
one. It is one of those things which might very well have
happened even if it did not.
Honors and favors were heaped upon Raleigh, and from being a poor
soldier and country gentleman he became rich and powerful, the
lord of lands in five counties, and Captain of the Queen's Own
Body-Guard. Haughty of manner, splendid in dress, loving jewels
more than even a woman does, Raleigh became as fine a courtier as
he was a brave soldier. But soldier though Raleigh was, courtier
though he was, loving ease and wealth and fine clothes, he was at
heart a sailor and adventurer, and the sea he had loved as a boy
called to him.
Like many another of his age Raleigh, hearing the call of the
waves ever in his ears, felt the desire to explore tug at his
heart-strings. For in those days America had been discovered,
and the quest for the famous North-West passage had begun. And
Raleigh longed to set forth with other men to conquer new worlds,
to find new paths across the waves. But above all he longed to
fight the Spaniards, who were the great sea kings of those days.
Raleigh however could not be a courtier and a sailor at one and
the same time. He was meanwhile high in the Queen's favor, and
she would not let him go from her. So all that Raleigh could do,
was to venture his money, and fit out a ship to which he gave his
own name. This he sent to sail along with others under the
command of his step-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who was setting
out upon a voyage of discovery. It was on this voyage that Sir
Humphrey found and claimed Newfoundland as an English possession,
setting up there "the Arms of England ingraven in lead and
infixed upon a pillar of wood."* But the expedition was
unfortunate, most of the men and ships were lost, Sir Humphrey
himself being drowned on his way home. He was brave and fearless
to the last. "We are as near to Heaven by sea as by land," he
said, a short time before his ship went down. One vessel only
"in great torment of weather and peril of drowning"* reached home
safely, "all the men tired with the tediousness of so
unprofitable a voyage to their seeming." Yet though they knew it
not they had helped to lay the foundation of Greater Britain.
*Hakluyt's Voyages.
Nothing daunted by this loss, six months later Raleigh sent out
another expedition. This time it was to the land south of
Newfoundland that the ships took their way. There they set up
the arms of England, and named the new possession Virginia in
honor of the virgin Queen. This expedition was little more
successful than Sir Humphrey Gilbert's, but nothing seemed to
discourage Raleigh. He was bent on founding a colony, and again
and yet again he sent out ships and men, spending all the wealth
which the Queen heaped upon him in trying to extend her dominions
beyond the seas. Hope was strong within him. "I shall yet live
to see it an English nation," he said.
*Sobs.
**"Colin Clout's come home again."
*Colin Clout.
You know how Spenser was received and how he fared. But Raleigh
himself after he had introduced his friend did not stay long at
court. Quarrels with his rivals soon drove him forth again.
It was soon after this that he published the first writing which
gives him a claim to the name of author. This was an account of
the fight between a little ship called the Revenge and a Spanish
fleet.
Although with the destruction of the Invincible Armada the sea
power of Spain had been crippled, it had not been utterly broken,
and still whenever Spanish and English ships met on the seas,
there was sure to be battle. It being known that a fleet of
Spanish treasure-ships would pass the Azores, islands in the mid-
Atlantic, a fleet of English ships under Lord Thomas Howard was
sent to attack them. But the English ships had to wait so long
at the Azores for the coming of the Spanish fleet that the news
of the intended attack reached Spain, and the Spaniards sent a
strong fleet to help and protect their treasure-ships. The
English in turn hearing of this sent a swift little boat to warn
Lord Thomas. The warning arrived almost too late. Many of the
Englishmen were sick and ashore, and before all could be gathered
the fleet of fifty-three great Spanish ships was upon them.
Still Lord Thomas managed to slip away. Only the last ship, the
Revenge, commanded by the Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Grenville,
lost the wind and was caught between two great squadrons of the
Spanish. Whereupon Sir Richard "was persuaded," Sir Walter says,
"by the Master and others to cut his main-sail, and cast about,
and to trust to the sailing of the ship. . . . But Sir Richard
utterly refused to turn from the enemy, alleging that he would
rather choose to die, than to dishonour himself, his country, and
her Majesty's ship, persuading his company that he would pass
through the two squadrons, in despite of them."
"But as the day increased so our men decreased. And as the light
grew more and more, by so much more grew our discomforts. For
none appeared in sight but enemies, saving one small ship called
the Pilgrim, commanded by Jacob Whiddon, who hovered all night to
see the success. But in the morning bearing with the Revenge,
she was hunted like a hare amongst many ravenous hounds, but
escaped.
"All the powder of the Revenge to the last barrel was now spent,
all her pikes broken, forty of her best men slain, and the most
part of the rest hurt. In the beginning of the fight she had but
one hundred free from sickness and four score and ten sick, laid
in hold upon the ballast. A small troop to man such a ship, and
a weak garrison to resist so mighty an army. By those hundred
all was sustained, the volleys, boarding and enterings of fifteen
ships of war, besides those which beat her at large.
"On the contrary, the Spanish were always supplied with soldiers
brought from every squadron; all manner of arms and power at
will. Unto ours there remained no comfort at all, no hope, no
supply either of ships, men, or weapons; the masts all beaten
overboard, all her tackle cut asunder, her upper work altogether
razed, and in effect evened she was with the water, but the very
foundation of a ship, nothing being left overhead for flight or
defence.
"And as the matter was thus in dispute, and Sir Richard refusing
to hearken to any of those reasons, the Master of the Revenge
(while the Captain won unto him the greater party) was convoyed
aboard the General Don Alfonso Bacan. Who (finding none
overhasty to enter the Revenge again, doubting lest Sir Richard
would have blown them up and himself, and perceiving by the
report of the Master of the Revenge his dangerous disposition)
yielded that all their lives should be saved, the company sent
for England, and the better sort to pay such reasonable ransom as
their estate would bear, and in the mean season to be free from
galley or imprisonment. To this he so much the better
condescended as well, as I have said, for fear of further loss
and mischief to themselves, as also for the desire he had to
recover Sir Richard Grenville, whom for his notable valour he
seemed greatly to honour and admire.
"When this answer was returned, and that safety of life was
promised, the common sort being now at the end of their peril the
most drew back from Sir Richard and the Master Gunner, (it) being
no hard matter to dissuade men from death to life. The Master
Gunner finding himself and Sir Richard thus prevented and
mastered by the greater number, would have slain himself with a
sword, had he not been by force with-held and locked into his
cabin. Then the General sent many boats aboard the Revenge, and
divers of our men fearing Sir Richard's disposition, stole away
aboard the General and other ships. Sir Richard thus over-
matched was sent unto by Alfonso Bacan to remove out of the
Revenge, the ship being marvellous unsavoury, filled with blood
and bodies of dead, and wounded men, like a slaughterhouse.
"Sir Richard answered he might do with his body what he list, for
he esteemed it not. And as he was carried out of the ship he
swooned, and reviving again desired the company to pray for him.
"The General used Sir Richard with all humanity, and left nothing
unattempted that tended to his recovery, highly commending his
valour and worthiness, and greatly bewailing the danger in which
he was, being unto them a rare spectacle, and a resolution seldom
approved, to see one ship turn toward so many enemies, to endure
the charge and boarding of so many huge Armadas, and to resist
and repel the assaults and entries of so many soldiers.
"There were slain and drowned in this fight well near one
thousand of the enemies, and two special commanders. . . .
besides divers others of special account.
This gallant fight of the little Revenge against the huge navy of
Spain is one of the great things in the story of the sea; that is
why I have chosen it out of all that Sir Walter wrote to give you
as a specimen of English prose in Queen Elizabeth's time. As
long as brave deeds are remembered, it will be told how Sir
Richard Grenville "walled round with wooden castles on the wave"
bid defiance to the might and pride of Spain, "hoping the
splendour of some lucky star."* The fight was a hopeless one
from the very beginning, but it was as gallant a one as ever took
place. Even his foes were forced to admire Sir Richard's
dauntless courage, for when he was carried aboard Don Alfonso's
ship "the captain and gentlemen went to visit him, and to comfort
him in his hard fortune, wondering at his courageous stout heart
for that he showed not any sign of faintness nor changing of
colour. But feeling the hour of death to approach, he spake
these words in Spanish and said, 'Here die I, Richard Grenville,
with a joyful and quiet mind, for that I have ended my life as a
true soldier ought to do, and hath fought for his country, Queen,
religion, and honour, whereby my soul most joyfully departeth out
of this body, and shall always leave behind it an everlasting
fame of a valiant and true soldier that hath done his duty as he
was bound to do.' When he had finished these or other like words
he gave up the Ghost, with great and stout courage, and no man
could perceive any true signs of heaviness in him."**
*Gervase Markham.
**Linschoten's Large Testimony in Hakluyt's Voyages.
So neither the gallant captain nor his little ship were led home
to the triumph of Spain.
SOON after the fight with the Revenge, the King of Spain made
ready more ships to attack England. Raleigh then persuaded Queen
Elizabeth that it would be well to be before hand with the
Spaniards and attack their ships at Panama. So to this end a
fleet was gathered together. But the Queen sent only two ships,
various gentlemen provided others, and Raleigh spent every penny
of his own that he could gather in fitting out the remainder. He
was himself chosen Admiral of the Fleet. So at length he started
on an expedition after his own heart.
But he had not gone far, when a swift messenger was sent to him
ordering him to return. Unwillingly he obeyed, and when he
reached home he was at once sent to the Tower a prisoner. This
time the Queen was really angry with him; in her eyes Raleigh's
crime was a deep one, for he had fallen in love with one of her
own maids of honor, Mistress Elizabeth Throgmorton, and the Queen
had discovered it. Elizabeth allowed none of her favorites to
love any one but herself, so she punished Raleigh by sending him
to the Tower.
But soon, in spite of his love for his wife, in spite of his
interest in his beautiful home, in spite of his many friends,
Raleigh's restless spirit again drove him to the sea, and he set
out on a voyage of discovery and adventure. This time he sailed
to Guiana in South America, in search of Eldorado, the fabled
city of gold. And this time he was not called back by the Queen,
but although he reached South America and sailed up the Orinoco
and the Caroni he "returned a beggar and withered"* without
having found the fabled city. Yet his belief in it was as strong
as ever. He had not found the fabled city but he believed it was
to be found, and when he came home he wrote an account of his
journey because some of his enemies said that he had never been
to Guiana at all but had been hiding in Cornwall all the time.
In this book he said that he was ready again to "lie hard, to
fare worse, to be subjected to perils, to diseases, to ill
savours, to be parched and withered"* if in the end he might
succeed.
Once again the English won a splendid victory over Spain. Before
the town of Cadiz eight English ships captured or destroyed
thirty Spanish great and little. They took the town of Cadiz and
razed its fortifications to the ground. Raleigh bore himself
well in this fight, so well, indeed, that even his rival, Essex,
was bound to confess "that which he did in the sea-service could
not be bettered."
And now after five years' banishment from the Queen's favor,
Raleigh was once more received at court. But we cannot follow
all the ups and downs of his court life, for we are told "Sir
Walter Raleigh was in and out at court, so often that he was
commonly called the tennis ball of fortune." And so the years
went on. Raleigh became a Member of Parliament, and was made
Governor of Jersey. He fought and traveled, attended to his
estates in Ireland, to his business in Cornwall, to his
governorship in Jersey. He led a stirring, busy life, fulfilling
his many duties, fighting his enemies, until in 1603 the great
Queen, whose smile or frown had meant so much to him, died.
Then soon after the new king came to the throne, it was seen that
Raleigh's day at court was indeed at an end. For James had been
told that Sir Walter was among those who were unwilling to
receive him as king. Therefore he was little disposed to look
graciously on the handsome daring soldier-sailor.
One by one Raleigh's posts of honor were taken from him. He was
accused of treason and once more found himself a prisoner in the
Tower. He was tried, and in spite of the fact that nothing was
proved against him, he was condemned to die. The sentence was
changed, however, to imprisonment for life.
Raleigh was not left quite lonely in the Tower. His wife and
children, whom he dearly loved, were allowed to come to live
beside him. The governor was kind to him and allowed his
renowned prisoner to use his garden. And there in a little hen-
house Raleigh amused himself by making experiments in chemistry,
and discovering among other things how to distill fresh water
from salt water. He found new friends too in the Queen and in
her young son Henry, Prince of Wales. It was a strange
friendship and a warm one that grew between the gallant boy-
prince of ten and the tried man of fifty. Prince Henry loved to
visit Raleigh in the Tower and listen to the tales of his brave
doings by sea and land in the days when he was free. Raleigh
helped Prince Henry to build a model ship, and the Prince asked
Raleigh's advice and talked over with him all his troubles. His
generous young heart grieved at the though of his friend's
misfortunes. "Who but my father would keep such a bird in such a
cage," he said with boyish indignation.
And it was for this boy friend that Raleigh began the book by
which we know him best, his History of the World. Never has such
a great work been attempted by a captive. To write the history
of even one country must mean much labor, much reading, much
thought. To write a history of the world still more. And I have
told you about Raleigh because with him begins an interest in
history beyond the bounds of our own island. Before him our
historians had only written of England.
"O eloquent, just and mighty death!" Raleigh says in the last
lines of his book, "Whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded,
what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath
flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised;
thou hast drawn together all the far stretching greatness, all
the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over
with these two narrow words Hic Jacet.
Raleigh begins his great book with the Creation and brings it
down to the third Macedonian war, which ended in 168 B.C. So you
see he did not get far. But although when he began he had
intended to write much more, he never meant to bring his history
down to his own time. "I know that it will be said by many," he
writes in his preface, "that I might have been more pleasing to
the reader if I had written the story of mine own times, having
been permitted to draw water as near the well-head as another.
To this I answer that whosoever in writing a modern history,
shall follow truth too near the heels, it may haply strike out
his teeth."
Raleigh feels it much safer to write "of the elder times." But
even so, he says there may be people who will think "that in
speaking of the past I point at the present," and that under the
names of those long dead he is showing the vices of people who
are alive. "But this I cannot help though innocent," he says.
Raleigh's fears were not without ground and at one time his
history was forbidden by King James "for being too saucy in
censuring princes. He took it much to heart, for he thought he
had won his spurs and pleased the King extraordinarily," He had
hoped to please the King and win freedom again, but his hopes
were shattered.
So once more the imprisoned sea-bird was free, and gathering men
and ships he set forth on his last voyage. He set forth bearing
with him all his hopes, all his fortune. For both Raleigh and
his wife almost beggared themselves to get money to fit out the
fleet, and with him as captain sailed his young son Walter.
Raleigh came home a sad and ruined man, and had the pity of the
King been as easily aroused as his fear of the Spaniards he had
surely been allowed to live out the rest of his life in peaceful
quiet. But James, who shuddered at the sight of a drawn sword,
feared the Spaniards and had patched up an imaginary peace with
them. And now when the Spanish Ambassador rushed into the King's
Chamber crying "Pirates! Pirates!" Raleigh's fate was sealed.
Thus once again, Raleigh found himself lodged in the Tower. But
so clearly did he show that he had broken no peace where no peace
was, that it was found impossible to put him to death because of
what he had done in Guiana. He was condemned to death,
therefore, on the old charge of treason passed upon him nearly
fifteen years before. He met death bravely and smiling. Clad in
splendid clothes such as he loved, he mounted the scaffold and
made his farewell speech to those around.
"So may we say to the memory of this worthy knight," says Fuller,
"'Repose yourself in this our Catalogue under what topic you
please, statesman, seaman, soldier, learned writer or what not.'
His worth unlocks our cabinets and proves both room and welcome
to entertain him . . . so dexterous was he in all his
undertakings in Court, in camp, by sea, by land, with sword, with
pen."*
*Fuller's Worthies.
BOOKS TO READ
Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley may be read in illustration of
this chapter.
The fact is, though perhaps I ought not to tell you, grown-ups
don't know everything. That is not any disgrace either, for of
course no one can know everything, not even father or mother.
And just as there are things which puzzle little folks, there are
things which puzzle big folks. And just as among little folks
there are some who ask more questions and who "want to know" more
than others, so among grown-ups there are some who more than
others seek for the answer to those puzzling question. These
people we call philosophers. The word comes from two Greek
words, philos loving, sophos wise, and means loving wisdom. In
this chapter I am going to tell you about Francis Bacon, the
great philosopher who lived in the times of Elizabeth and James.
I do not think that I can quite make you understand what
philosophy really means, or what his learned books were about,
nor do I think you will care to read them for a long time to
come. But you will find the life of Francis Bacon very
interesting. It is well, too, to know about Bacon, for with him
began a new kind of search for wisdom. The old searchers after
truth had tried to settle the questions which puzzled them by
turning to imaginary things, and by mere thinking. Bacon said
that we must answer these questions by studying not what was
imaginary, but what was real--by studying nature. So Bacon was
not only a lover of truth but was also the first of our
scientists of to-day. Scientist comes from the Latin word scio
to know, and Science means that which we know by watching things
and trying things,--by making experiments. And although Bacon
did not himself find out anything new and useful to man, he
pointed out the road upon which others were to travel.
*James Spedding.
Francis was the youngest of a big family, and when he was little
more than twelve years old he went to Trinity College, Cambridge.
Even in those days, when people went to college early, this was
young.
He worked hard, for from the very beginning he meant to get on,
he meant to be rich and powerful. So he bowed low before the
great, he wrote letters to them full of flattery, he begged and
promised.
Bacon is like a man with two faces. We look at one and we see a
kindly face full of pity and sorrow for all wrong and pain that
men must suffer, we see there a longing to help man, to be his
friend. We look at the other face and there we see the greed of
gain, the desire for power and place. Yet it may be that Bacon
only strove to be great so that he might have more power and
freedom to be pitiful. In spite of Bacon's hard work, in spite
of his flattery and begging, he did not rise fast. After five
years we find him indeed a barrister and a Member of Parliament,
but among the many great men of his age he was still of little
account. He had not made his mark, in spite of the fact that the
great Lord Burleigh was his uncle, in spite of the fact that
Elizabeth had liked him as a boy. Post after post for which he
begged was given to other men. He was, he said himself, "like a
child following a bird, which when he is nearest flieth away and
lighteth a little before, and then the child after it again, and
so in infinitum. I am weary of it."
* William Rawley.
Essex through all his brilliant years when the Queen smiled upon
him stuck by his friend, for him he spent his "power, might,
authority and amity" in vain. When the dark hours came and Essex
fell into disgrace, it was Bacon who forgot his friendship.
The trial of Essex must have been a brilliant scene. The Earl
himself, young, fair of face, splendidly clad, stood at the bar.
He showed no fear, his bearing was as proud and bold as ever,
"but whether his courage were borrowed and put on for the time or
natural, it were hard to judge."* The Lord Treasurer, the Lord
High Steward, too were there and twenty-five peers, nine earls,
and sixteen barons to try the case. Among the learned counsel
sat Bacon, a disappointed man of forty. There was nothing to
single him out from his fellows save that he was the Earl's
friend, and as such might be looked upon to do his best to save
him.
*John Chamberlain.
As the trial went on, however, Bacon spoke, not to save, but to
condemn. Did no memory of past kindliness cross his mind as he
likened his friend to "Cain, that first murderer," as he
complained to the court that too much favor was shown to the
prisoner, that he had never before heard "so ill a defense of
such great and notorious treasons." The Earl answered in his own
defense again and yet again. But at length he was silent. His
case was hopeless, and he was condemned to death. He was
executed on 25th February, 1601.
Perhaps Bacon could not have saved his friend from death, but had
he used his wit to try at least to save instead of helping to
condemn, he would have kept his own name from a dark blot. But a
greater betrayal of friendship was yet to follow. Though Essex
had been wild and foolish the people loved him, and now they
murmured against the Queen for causing his death. Then it was
thought well, that they should know all the blackness of his
misdeeds, and it was Bacon who was called upon to write the story
of them.
Even from this he did not shrink, for he hoped for great rewards.
But, as before, the Queen used him, and withheld "the bounty of
her hand"; from her he received no State appointment. He did
indeed receive 1200 pounds in money. It was scarcely as much as
Essex had once given him out of friendship. To Bacon it seemed
too small a reward for his betrayal of his friend, even although
it had seemed to mean loyalty to his Queen. "The Queen hath done
somewhat for me," he wrote, "though not in the proportion I
hoped." And so in debt and with a blotted name, Bacon lived on
until Queen Elizabeth died. But with the new King his fortunes
began to rise. First he was made Sir Francis Bacon, then from
one honor to another he rose until he became at last Lord High
Chancellor of England, the highest judge in the land. A few
months later, he was made a peer with the title of Baron Verulam.
A few years later at the age of sixty he went still one step
higher and became Viscount St. Albans.
Bacon chose the name of Baron Verulam from the name of the old
Roman city Verulamium which was afterwards called St. Albans. It
was near St. Albans that Bacon had built himself a splendid
house, laid out a beautiful garden, and planted fine trees, and
there he kept as great state as the King himself.
He had now reached his highest power. He had published his great
work called the Novum Organum or New Instrument in which he
taught men a new way of wisdom. He was the greatest judge in the
land and a peer of the realm. He had married too, but he never
had any children, and we know little of his home life.
He had always loved splendor and pomp, he had always spent more
than he could afford. Now he was accused of taking bribes, that
is, he was accused of taking money from people and, instead of
judging fairly, of judging in favor of those who had given him
most money. He was accused, in fact, of selling justice. That
he should sell justice is the blackest charge that can be brought
against a judge. At first Bacon could not believe that any one
would dare to attack him. But when he heard that it was true, he
sank beneath the disgrace, he made no resistance. His health
gave way. On his sick-bed he owned that he had taken presents,
yet to the end he protested that he had judged justly. He had
taken the bribes indeed, but they had made no difference to his
judgments. He had not sold justice.
He made his confession and stood to it. "My lords," he said, "it
is my act, my hand, my heart. I beseech your lordships be
merciful to a broken reed."
"I was the justest judge that was in England these fifty years,"
said Bacon afterwards. "But it was the justest censure in
Parliament that was these two hundred years."
And now that his life was shipwrecked, though he never ceased to
long to return to his old greatness, he gave all his time to
writing and to science. He spent many peaceful hours in the
garden that he loved. "His lordship," we are told, "was a very
contemplative person, and was wont to contemplate in his
delicious walks." He was generally accompanied by one of the
gentlemen of his household "that attended him with ink and paper
ready to set down presently his thoughts."*
*J. Aubrey.
Bacon was now shut out from honorable work in the world, but he
had no desire to be idle. "I have read in books," he wrote,
"that it is accounted a great bliss to have Leisure with Honour.
That was never my fortune. For time was I had Honour without
Leisure; and now I have Leisure without Honour. But my desire is
now to have Leisure without Loitering." So now he lived as he
himself said "a long cleansing week of five years." Then the end
came.
It was Bacon's thirst for knowledge that caused his death. One
winter day when the snow lay on the ground he drove out in his
coach. Suddenly as he drove along looking at the white-covered
fields and roads around, the thought came to him that food might
be kept good by means of snow as easily as by salt. He resolved
to try, so, stopping his coach, he went into a poor woman's
cottage and bought a hen. The woman killed and made ready the
hen, but Bacon was so eager about his experiment that he stuffed
it himself with snow. In doing this he was so chilled by the
cold that he became suddenly ill, too ill to return home. He was
taken to a house near "where they put him into a good bed warmed
with a pan"* and there after a few days he died.
*J. Aubrey.
This little story of how Bacon came by his death gives a good
idea of how he tried to make use of his philosophy. He was not
content with thinking and speculating, that is, looking at ideas.
Speculate comes from the Latin speculari, to spy out. He wanted
to experiment too. And although in those days no one had thought
about it, we now know that Bacon was quite right and that meat
can be kept by freezing it. And it is pleasant to know that
before Bacon died he was able to write that the experiment had
succeeded "excellently well."
In his will Bacon left his name and memory "to men's charitable
speeches, to foreign nations and to the next ages," and he was
right to do so, for in spite of all the dark shadows that hang
about his name men still call him great. We remember him as a
great man among great men; we remember him as the fore-runner of
modern science; we remember him for the splendid English in which
he wrote.
I will not weary you with a list of all the books Bacon wrote.
Although it is not considered his greatest work, that by which
most people know him is his Book of Essays. By an essay, Bacon
meant a testing or proving. In the short chapters of his essays
he tries and proves many things such as Friendship, Study, Honor;
and when you come to read these essays you will be surprised to
find how many of the sentences are known to you already. They
have become "household words," and without knowing it we repeat
Bacon's wisdom. But we miss in them something of human
kindliness. Bacon's wisdom is cool, calm, and calculating, and
we long sometimes for a little warmth, a little passion, and not
so much "use."
The essays are best known, but the New Atlantis is the book that
you will best like to read, for it is something of a story, and
of it I will tell you a little in the next chapter.
Chapter LIII BACON--THE HAPPY ISLAND
"And we, thinking every minute long till we were on land, came
close to the shore, and offered to land. But straightways we saw
divers of the people, with bastons in their hands, as it were
forbidding us to land; yet without any cries or fierceness, but
only as warning us off by signs that they made. Whereupon being
not a little discomforted, we were advising with ourselves what
we should do. During which time there made forth to us a small
boat, with about eight persons in it; whereof one of them had in
his hand a tipstaff* of a yellow cane, tipped at both ends with
blue, who came aboard our ship, without any show of distrust at
all. And when he saw one of our number present himself somewhat
before the rest, he drew forth a little scroll of parchment
(somewhat yellower than our parchment, and shining like the
leaves of writing-tables, but otherwise soft and flexible), and
delivered it to our foremost man. In which scroll were written
in ancient Hebrew, and in ancient Greek, and in good Latin of the
School, and in Spanish, these words: 'Land ye not, none of you.
And provide to be gone from this coast within sixteen days,
except ye have further time given you. Meanwhile, if ye want
fresh water, or victual, or help for your sick, or that your ship
needeth repair, write down your wants, and ye shall have that
which belongeth to mercy.'
*Staff of office.
"This scroll was signed with a stamp of Cherubim's wings, not
spread but hanging downwards, and by them a cross.
"Our answer was in the Spanish tongue: 'That for our ship, it
was well; for we had rather met with calms and contrary winds
than any tempests. For our sick, they were many, and in very ill
case, so that if they were not permitted to land, they ran danger
of their lives.'
About three hours after the answer had been sent, the ship was
visited by another great man from the island. "He had on him a
gown with wide sleeves, of a kind of water chamelot of an
excellent azure colour, far more glossy than ours. His under
apparel was green, and so was his hat, being in the form of a
turban, daintily made, and not so huge as the Turkish turbans.
And the locks of his hair came down below the brims of it. A
reverend man was he to behold.
"He came in a boat, gilt in some part of it, with four persons
more only in that boat, and was followed by another boat, wherein
were some twenty. When he was come within a flight shot of our
ship, signs were made to us that we should send forth some to
meet him upon the water; which we presently did in our shipboat,
sending the principal man amongst us save one, and four of our
number with him.
"When we were come within six yards of their boat they called to
us to stay, and not to approach further, which we did. And
thereupon the man whom I before described stood up, and with a
loud voice in Spanish, asked 'Are ye Christians?'
"We answered, 'We were'; fearing the less, because of the cross
we had seen in the subscription.
"At which answer the said person lifted up his right hand towards
heaven, and drew it softly to his mouth (which is the gesture
they use when they thank God) and then said: 'If ye will swear
(all of you) by the merits of the Saviour that ye are not
pirates, nor have shed blood lawfully or unlawfully within forty
days past, you may have licence to come on land.'
"Whereupon one of those that were with him, being (as it seemed)
a notary, made an entry of this act. Which done, another of the
attendants of the great person, which was with him in the same
boat, after his lord had spoken a little to him, said aloud: 'My
lord would have you know, that it is not of pride or greatness
that he cometh out aboard your ship; but for that in your answer
you declare that you have many sick amongst you, he was warned by
the Conservator of Health of the city that he should keep a
distance.'
"We bowed ourselves towards him, and answered, 'We were his
humble servants; and accounted for great honour and singular
humanity towards us that which was already done; but hoped well
that the nature of the sickness of our men was not infectious.'
"He gave us our oath; 'By the name of Jesus and of his merits,'
and after told us that the next day by six of the clock in the
morning we should be sent to, and brought to the Strangers' House
(so he called it), where we should be accommodated of things both
for our whole and for our sick.
So next morning the people landed from the ship, and Bacon goes
on to tell us of the wonderful things they saw and learned in the
island. The most wonderful thing was a place called Solomon's
House. In describing it Bacon was describing such a house as he
hoped one day to see in England. It was a great establishment in
which everything that might be of use to mankind was studied and
taught. And Bacon speaks of many things which were only guessed
at in his time. He speaks of high towers wherein people watched
"winds, rain, snow, hail and some of the fiery meteors also."
To-day we have observatories. He speaks of "help for the sight
far above spectacles and glasses," also "glasses and means to see
small and minute bodies perfectly and distinctly, as the shapes
and colours of small flies and worms, grains and flaws in gems,
which cannot otherwise be seen." To-day we have the microscope.
He says "we have also means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes,
in strange lines and distances," yet in those days no one had
dreamed of a telephone. "We imitate also flights of birds; we
have some degrees of flying in the air. We have ships and boats
for going under water," yet in those days stories of flying-ships
or torpedoes would have been treated as fairy tales.
Bacon did not finish The New Atlantis. "The rest was not
perfected" are the last words in the book and it was not
published until after his death. These words might almost have
been written of Bacon himself. A great writer, a great man,--but
"The rest was not perfected." He put his trust in princes and he
fell. Yet into the land of knowledge--
You will like to know, that less than forty years after Bacon's
death a society called The Royal Society was founded. This is a
Society which interests itself in scientific study and research,
and is the oldest of its kind in Great Britain. It was Bacon's
fancy of Solomon's House which led men to found this Society.
Bacon was the great man whose "true imagination"* set it on foot,
and although many years have passed since then, the Royal Society
still keeps its place in the forefront of Science.
BOOKS TO READ
BEFORE either Ben Jonson or Bacon died, a second Stuart king sat
on the throne of England. This was Charles I the son of James VI
and I. The spacious days of Queen Elizabeth were over and gone,
and the temper of the people was changing. Elizabeth had been a
tyrant but the people of England had yielded to her tyranny.
James, too, was a tyrant, but the people struggled with him, and
in the struggle they grew stronger. In the days of Elizabeth the
religion of England was still unsettled. James decided that the
religion of England must be Episcopal, but as the reign of James
went on, England became more and more Puritan and the breach
between King and people grew wide, for James was no Puritan nor
was Charles after him.
For one reason or another the plays that were written became by
degrees poorer and poorer. They were coarse too, many of them so
much so that we do not care to read them now. But people wrote
such stories as the play-goers of those days liked, and from them
we can judge how low the taste of England had fallen. However,
there were people in England in those days who revolted against
this taste, and in 1642, when the great struggle between King
Parliament had begun, all theaters were closed by order of
Parliament. So for a time the life of English drama paused.
Here are two written by Richard Lovelace, the very model of a gay
cavalier. While he was at Oxford, King Charles saw him and made
him M.A. or Master of Arts, not for his learning, but because of
his beautiful face. He went to court and made love and sang
songs gayly. He went to battle and fought and sang as gayly, he
went to prison and still sang. To the cause of his King he clung
through all, and when Charles was dead and Cromwell ruled with
his stern hand, and song was hushed in England, he died miserably
in a poor London alley.
In these few cavalier songs we can see the spirit of the times.
There is gay carelessness of death, strong courage in misfortune,
passionate loyalty. There is, too, the proud spirit of the
tyrant, which is gentle and loving when obeyed, harsh and cruel
if disobeyed.
HAVING told you a little about the songs of the cavaliers I must
now tell you something about the religious poets who were a
feature of the age. Of all our religious poets, of this time at
least, George Herbert is the greatest. He was born in 1593 near
the town of Montgomery, and was the son of a noble family, but
his father died when he was little more than three, leaving his
mother to bring up George with his nine brothers and sisters.
George Herbert's mother was a good and beautiful woman, and she
loved her children so well that the poet said afterwards she had
been twice a mother to him.
*Izaak Walton.
*The same.
For a time, then, he left court and went into the country, and
there he passed through a great struggle with himself. The
question he had to settle was "whether he should return to the
painted pleasure of a court life" or become a priest.
But before Herbert was fully ordained a great change came into
his life. The Church of England was now Protestant and priests
were allowed to marry, and George Herbert married. The story of
how he met his wife is pretty.
Herbert was such a cheerful and good man that he had many
friends. It was said, indeed, that he had no enemy. Among his
many friends was one named Danvers, who loved him so much that he
said nothing would make him so happy as that George should marry
one of his nine daughters. But specially he wished him to marry
his daughter Jane, for he loved her best, and would think of no
more happy fate for her than to be the wife of such a man as
George Herbert. He talked of George so much to Jane that she
loved him without having seen him. George too heard of Jane and
wished to meet her. And at last after a long time they met.
Each had heard so much about the other that they seemed to know
one another already, and like the prince and princess in a fairy
tale, they loved at once, and three days later they were married.
*Walton.
But he did not only preach, he practised too. I must tell you
just one story to show you how he practiced. Herbert was very
fond of music; he sang, and played too, upon the lute and viol.
One day as he was walking into Salisbury to play with some
friends "he saw a poor man with a poorer horse, which was fallen
under his load. They were both in distress and needed present
help. This Mr. Herbert perceiving put off his canonical coat,
and helped the poor man to unload, and after to load his horse.
The poor man blest him for it, and he blest the poor man, and was
so like the Good Samaritan that he gave him money to refresh both
himself and his horse, and told him, that if he loved himself, he
should be merciful to his beast. Thus he left the poor man.
*Walton.
*Counted.
I have told you the story about Herbert and the poor man in the
words of Izaak Walton, the first writer of a life of George
Herbert. I hope some day you will read that life and also the
other books Walton wrote, for although we have not room for him
in this book, his books are one of the delights of our literature
which await you.
In all Herbert's work among his people, his wife was his
companion and help, and the people loved her as much as they
loved their parson. "Love followed her," says Walton, "in all
places as inseparably as shadows follow substances in sunshine."
Besides living thus for his people Herbert almost rebuilt the
church and rectory both of which he found very ruined. And when
he had made an end of rebuilding he carved these words upon the
chimney in the hall of the Rectory:
"If thou chance for to find
A new house to thy mind,
And built without thy cost;
Be good to the poor,
As God gives thee Store
And then my labor's not lost."
His life, one would think, was busy enough, and full enough, yet
amid it all he found time to write. Besides many poems he wrote
for his own guidance a book called The Country Parson. It is a
book, says Walton, "so full of plain, prudent, and useful rules
that that country parson that can spare 12d. and yet wants it is
scarce excusable."
But Herbert's happy, useful days at Bemerton were all too short.
In 1632, before he had held his living three years, he died, and
was buried by his sorrowing people beneath the altar of his own
little church.
It was not until after his death that his poems were published.
On his death-bed he left the book in which he had written them to
a friend. "Desire him to read it," he said, "and if he can think
it may turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul, let it be
made public. If not let him burn it."
The book was published under the name of The Temple. All the
poems are short except the first, called The Church Porch. From
that I will quote a few lines. It begins:
He was born in 1591 and was the son of an old, well-to-do family,
his father being a London goldsmith. But, like Herbert, he lost
his father when he was but a tiny child. Like Herbert again he
went to Westminster School and later Cambridge. But before he
went to Cambridge he was apprenticed to his uncle, who was a
goldsmith, as his brother, Herrick's father, had been. Robert,
however, never finished his apprenticeship. He found out, we may
suppose, that he had no liking for the jeweler's craft, that his
hand was meant to create jewels of another kind. So he left his
uncle's workshop and went to Cambridge, although he was already
much beyond the usual age at which boys then went to college.
Like Herbert he went to college meaning to study for the Church.
But according to our present-day ideas he seems little fitted to
have been a priest. For although we know little more than a few
bare facts about Herrick's life, when we have read his poems and
looked at his portrait we can draw for ourselves a clear picture
of the man, and the picture will not fit in with our ideas of
priesthood.
After Herrick left college we know little of his life for eight
or nine years. He lived in London, met Ben Jonson and all the
other poets and writers who flocked about great Ben. He went to
court no doubt, and all the time he wrote poems. It was a gay
and cheerful life which, when at length he was given the living
of Dean Prior in Devonshire, he found it hard to leave.
"Though Clock,
To tell how night draws hence, I've none,
A Cock
I have, to sing how day draws on.
I have
A maid (my Prue) by good luck sent,
To save
That little, Fates me gave or lent.
A Hen
I keep, which, creeking* day by day,
Tells when
She goes her long white egg to lay.
A Goose
I have, which, with a jealous ear,
Lets loose
Her tongue, to tell what danger's near.
A Lamb
I keep, tame, with my morsels fed,
Whose Dam
An orphan left him, lately dead.
A Cat
I keep, that plays about my house,
Grown fat
With eating many a miching** mouse.
To these
A Tracy*** I do keep, whereby
I please
The more my rural privacy,
Which are
But toys to give my heart some ease;
Where care
None is, slight things do lightly please."
*Clucking.
**Thieving.
***His spaniel.
But Herrick did not love his country home and parish or his
people. We are told that the gentry round about loved him "for
his florid and witty discourses." But his people do not seem to
have loved these same discourses, for we are also told that one
day in anger he threw his sermon from the pulpit at them because
they did not listen attentively. He says:--
While Herrick lived his quiet, dull life and wrote poetry in the
depths of Devonshire, the country was being torn asunder and
tossed from horror to horror by the great Civil War. Men took
sides and fought for Parliament or for King. Year by year the
quarrel grew. What was begun at Edgehill ended at Naseby where
the King's cause was utterly lost. Then, although Herrick took
no part in the fighting, he suffered with the vanquished, for he
was a Royalist at heart. He was turned out of his living to make
room for a Parliament man. He left this parish without regret.
"Deanbourne, farewell; I never look to see
Deane, or thy warty incivility.
Thy rocky bottom, that doth tear thy streams,
And makes them frantic, ev'n to all extremes;
To my content, I never should behold,
Were thy streams silver, or thy rocks all gold.
Rocky thou art, and rocky we discover
Thy men: and rocky are thy ways all over.
O men, O manners, now and ever known
To be a rocky generation:
A people currish; churlish as the seas;
And rude, almost, as rudest savages:
With whom I did, and may re-sojourn when
Rocks turn to rivers, rivers turn to men."
So the years passed for Herrick we hardly know how. In the great
world Cromwell died and Charles II returned to England to claim
the throne of his fathers. Then it would seem that Herrick had
not found all the joy he had hoped for in London, for two years
later, although rocks had not turned to rivers, nor rivers to
men, he went back to his "loathed Devonshire."
After that, all that we know of him is that at Dean Prior "Robert
Herrick vicker was buried ye 15th day of October 1674." Thus in
twilight ends the life of the greatest lyric poet of the
seventeenth century.
All the lyric poets of whom I have told you were Royalists, but
the Puritans too had their poets, and before ending this chapter
I would like to tell you a little of Andrew Marvell, a
Parliamentary poet.
Yet although Marvell loved Nature, he did not live, like Herrick,
far from the stir of war, but took his part in the strife of the
times. He was an important man in his day. He was known to
Cromwell and was a friend of Milton, a poet much greater than
himself. He was a member of Parliament, and wrote much prose,
but the quarrels in the cause of which it was written are matters
of bygone days, and although some of it is still interesting, it
is for his poetry rather that we remember and love him. Although
Marvell was a Parliamentarian, he did not love Cromwell blindly,
and he could admire what was fine in King Charles. He could say
of Cromwell:--
And no one perhaps wrote with more grave sorrow of the death of
Charles than did Marvell, and that too in a poem which, strangely
enough, was written in honor of Cromwell.
But all Marvell's writings were not political, and one of his
prettiest poems was written about a girl mourning for a lost pet.
*Burnet.
Besides the lyric writers there were many prose writers in the
seventeenth century who are among the men to be remembered. But
their books, although some day you will love them, would not
interest you yet. They tell no story, they are long, they have
not, like poetry, a lilt or rhythm to carry one on. It would be
an effort to read them. If I tried to explain to you wherein the
charm of them lies I fear the charm would fly, for it is
impossible to imprison the sunbeam or find the foundations of the
rainbow. It is better therefore to leave these books until the
years to come in which it will be no effort to read them, but a
joy.
"THERE is but one Milton,"* there is, too, but one Shakespeare,
yet John Milton, far more than William Shakespeare, stands a
lonely figure in our literature. Shakespeare was a dramatist
among dramatists. We can see how there were those who led up to
him, and others again who led away from him. From each he
differs in being greater, he outshines them all. Shakespeare was
a man among men. He loved and sinned with men, he was homely and
kindly, and we can take him to our hearts. Milton both in his
life and work was cold and lonely. He was a master without
scholars, a leader without followers. Him we can admire, but
cannot love with an understanding love. Yet although we love
Shakespeare we can find throughout all his works hardly a line
upon which we can place a finger and say here Shakespeare speaks
of himself, here he shows what he himself thought and felt.
Shakespeare understood human nature so well that he could see
through another's eyes and so forget himself. But over and over
again in Milton's work we see himself. Over and over again we
can say here Milton speaks of himself, here he shows us his own
heart, his own pain. He is one of the most self-ful of all
poets. He has none of the dramatic power of Shakespeare, he
cannot look through another's eyes, so he sees things only from
one standpoint and that his own. He stands far apart from us,
and is almost inhumanly cold. That is the reason why so many of
us find him hard to love.
*Professor Raleigh.
John Milton was the son of a London scrivener, that is, a kind of
lawyer. He was well-to-do and a Puritan. Milton's home,
however, must have been brighter than many a Puritan home, for
his father loved music, and not only played well, but also
composed. He taught his son to play too, and all through his
life Milton loved music.
John was a pretty little boy with long golden brown hair, a fair
face and dark gray eyes. But to many a strict Puritan, beauty
was an abomination, and we are told that one of Milton's
schoolmasters "was a Puritan in Essex who cut his hair short."
No doubt to him a boy with long hair was unseemly. John was the
eldest and much beloved son of his father, who perhaps petted and
spoiled him. He was clever as well as pretty, and already at the
age of ten he was looked upon by his family as a poet. He was
very studious, for besides going to St. Paul's School he had a
private tutor. Even with that he was not satisfied, but studied
alone far into the night. "When he went to schoole, when he was
very young," we are told, "he studied hard and sate up very late:
commonly till twelve or one at night. And his father ordered the
mayde to sitt up for him. And in those years he composed many
copies of verses, which might well become a riper age."* We can
imagine to ourselves the silence of the house, when all the
Puritan household had been long abed. We can picture the warm
quiet room where sits the little fair-haired boy poring over his
books by the light of flickering candles, while in the shadow a
stern-faced white-capped Puritan woman waits. She sits very
straight in her chair, her worn hands are folded, her eyes heavy
with sleep. Sometimes she nods. Then with a start she shakes
herself wide awake again, murmuring softly that it is no hour for
any Christian body to be out o' bed, wondering that her master
should allow so young a child to keep so long over his books.
Still she has her orders, so with a patient sigh she folds her
hands again and waits. Thus early did Milton begin to shape his
own course and to live a life apart from others.
*Aubrey.
Milton went home to his father's house without any settled plan
of life. He had not made up his mind what he was to be, he was
only sure that he could not be a clergyman. His father was well
off, but not wealthy. He had no great estates to manage, and he
must have wished his eldest son to do and be something in the
world, yet he did not urge it upon him. Milton himself, however,
was not quite at rest, as his sonnet On his being arrived to the
age of twenty-three shows:--
L'Allegro and Il Penseroso are two poems which picture two moods
in which the poet looks at life. They are two moods which come
to every one, the mirthful and the sad. L'Allegro pictures the
happy mood. Here the man "who has, in his heart, cause for
contentment" sings. And the poem fairly dances with delight of
being as it follows the day from dawn till evening shadows fall.
It begins by bidding "loathed Melancholy" begone "'Mongst horrid
shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy," and by bidding come
"heart-easing Mirth."
These are a few lines from the opening of the poem which you must
read for yourselves, for if I quoted all that is beautiful in it
I should quote the whole.
It was during these early years spent at Horton, too, that Milton
wrote his masque of Comus. It is strange to find a Puritan poet
writing a masque, for Puritans looked darkly on all acting. It
is strange to find that, in spite of the Puritan dislike to
acting, the last and, perhaps, the best masque in our language
should be written by a Puritan, and that not ten years before all
the theaters in the land were closed by Puritan orders. But
although, in many ways, Milton was sternly Puritan, these were
only the better ways. He had no hatred of beauty, "God has
instilled into me a vehement love of the beautiful," he says.
Through this wood a Lady and her two brothers pass, and on the
way the Lady is separated from her brothers and loses her way.
As she wanders about she is discovered by Comus who, disguising
himself as a shepherd, offers her shelter in his "low but loyal
cottage." The Lady, innocent and trusting, follows him. But
instead of leading her to a cottage he leads her to his palace.
There the Lady is placed in an enchanted chair from which she
cannot rise, and Comus tempts her to drink from his magic glass.
The Lady refuses, and with his magic wand Comus turns her to
seeming stone.
"Sabrina fair,
Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair,
Listen for dear honour's sake,
Goddess of the silver lake,
Listen and save."
When Milton returned home he did not go back to Horton, but set
up house in London. Here he began to teach his two nephews, his
sister's children, who were boys of nine and ten. Their father
had died, their mother married again, and Milton not only taught
the boys, but took them to live with him. He found pleasure, it
would seem, in teaching, for soon his little class grew, and he
began to teach other boys, the sons of friends.
Milton was a good master, but a severe one. The boys were kept
long hours at their lessons, and we are told that in a year's
time they could read a Latin author at sight, and within three
years they went through the best Latin and Greek poets. But "as
he was severe on one hand, so he was most familiar and free in
his conversation to those to whom most sour in his way of
education." He himself showed the example of "hard study and
spare diet,"** for besides teaching the boys he worked and wrote
steadily, study being ever the "grand affair of his life."**
Only now and again he went to see "young sparks" of his
acquaintance, "and now and then to keep a gawdy-day."** It is
scarce to be imagined that a gawdy-day in which John Milton took
part could have been very riotous.
*Aubrey.
**Philips.
Then after Milton had been leading this severe quiet life for
about four years, a strange thing happened. One day he set off
on a journey. He told no one why he went. Every one thought it
was but a pleasure jaunt. He was away about a month, then "home
he returns a married man that went out a bachelor."* We can
imagine how surprised the little boys would be to find that their
grave teacher of thirty-four had brought home a wife, a wife,
too, who was little more than a girl a few years older than
themselves. And as it was a surprise to them it is still a
surprise to all who read and write about Milton's life to this
day. With the new wife came several of her friends, and so the
quiet house was made gay with feasting and merriment for a few
days; for strange to say, Milton, the stern Puritan, had married
a Royalist lady, the daughter of a cavalier. After these few
merry days the gay friends left, and the young bride remained
behind with her grave and learned husband, in her new quiet home.
But to poor little Mary Milton, used to a great house and much
merry coming and going, the life she now led seemed dull beyond
bearing. She was not clever; indeed, she was rather stupid, so
after having led a "philosophical life" for about a month, she
begged to be allowed to go back to her mother.
*Philips.
Time went on, the King's cause was all but hopeless. Many a
cavalier had lost all in his defense, among them those of Mary
Milton's family. Driven from their home, knowing hardly where to
turn for shelter, they bethought them of Mary's slighted husband.
He was on the winning side, and a man of growing importance.
Beneath his roof Mary at least would be safe.
The poor little runaway wife, we may believe, was afraid to face
her angry husband. But helped both by his friends and her own a
meeting was arranged. Milton had a friend to whose house he
often went, and in this house his wife was hid one day when the
poet came to pay a visit. While Milton waited for his friend he
was surprised, for when the door opened there came from the
adjoining room, not his friend, but "one whom he thought to have
never seen more." Mary his wife came to him, and sinking upon
her knees before him begged to be forgiven. Long after, in his
great poem, Milton seems to describe the scene when he makes Adam
cry out to Eve after the Fall, "Out of my sight, thou serpent!
That name best befits thee."
"But Eve,
Not so repulsed, with tears that ceased not flowing,
And tresses all disordered, at his feet
Fell humble, and, embracing them, besought
His peace; and thus proceeded in her plaint:
'Forsake me not thus, Adam! Witness, Heaven,
What love sincere, and reverence in my heart
I bear thee, and unweeting have offended,
Unhappily deceived! Thy suppliant
I beg, and clasp thy knees. Bereave me not,
Whereon I live, thy gentle looks, thy aid,
Thy counsel in this uttermost distress,
My only strength and stay. Forlorn of thee,
Whither shall I betake me? where subsist?
While yet we live, scarce one short hour perhaps,
Between us two let there be peace.'
. . . . . . .
She ended weeping; and her lowly plight,
Immovable till peace obtained from fault
Acknowledged and deplored, in Adam wrought
Commiseration. Soon his heart relented
Towards her, his life so late and sole delight,
Now at his feet submissive in distress,
Creature so fair his reconcilement seeking,
His counsel, whom she had displeased, his aid;
As one disarmed, his anger all he lost,
And thus with peaceful words upraised her soon."
Milton thus took back to his home his wandering wife and not her
only, but also her father, mother, and homeless brothers and
sisters. So although he had moved to a larger house, it was now
full to overflowing, for besides all this Royalist family he had
living with him his pupils and his own old father.
AND now for twenty years the pen of Milton was used, not for
poetry, but for prose. The poet became a politician. Victory
was still uncertain, and Milton poured out book after book in
support of the Puritan cause. These books are full of wrath and
scorn and all the bitter passion of the time. They have hardly a
place in true literature, so we may pass them over glad that
Milton found it possible to spend his bitterness in prose and
leave his poetry what it is.
One only of his prose works is still remembered and still read
for its splendid English. That is Areopagitica, a passionate
appeal for a free press. Milton desired that a man should have
not only freedom of thought, but freedom to write down and print
and publish these thoughts. But the rulers of England, ever
since printing had been introduced, had thought otherwise, and by
law no book could be printed until it had been licensed, and no
man might set up a printing press without permission from
Government. To Milton this was tyranny. "As good almost kill a
man as kill a good book," he said, and again "Give me the liberty
to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to my conscience
above all liberties." He held the licensing law in contempt, and
to show his contempt he published Areopagitica without a license
and without giving the printer's or bookseller's name. It was
not the first time Milton had done this, and his enemies tried to
use it against him to bring him into trouble. But he had become
by this time too important a man, and nothing came of it.
Time went on, the bitter struggle between King and people came to
an end. The people triumphed, and the King laid his head upon
the block. Britain was without ruler other than Parliament. It
was then, one March day in 1649, that a few grave-faced, somber-
clad men knocked at the door of Milton's house. We can imagine
them tramping into the poet's low-roofed study, their heavy shoes
resounding on the bare floor, their sad faces shaded with their
tall black hats. And there, in sing-song voices, they tell the
astonished man that they come from Parliament to ask him to be
Secretary for Foreign Tongues.
Milton was astonished, but he accepted the post. And now his
life became a very busy one. It had been decided that all
letters to foreign powers should be written in Latin, but many
Governments wrote to England in their own languages. Milton had
to translate these letters, answer them in Latin, and also write
little books or pamphlets in answer to those which were written
against the Government.
It was while he was busy with this, while he was pouring out
bitter abuse upon his enemies or upon the enemies of his party,
that his great misfortune fell upon him. He became blind. He
had had many warnings. He had been told to be careful of his
eyes, for the sight of one had long been gone. But in spite of
all warnings he still worked on, and at length became quite
blind.
His enemies jeered at him, and said it was a judgment upon him
for his wicked writing. But never for a moment did Milton's
spirit quail. He had always been sure of himself, sure of his
mission in life, sufficient for himself. And now that the horror
of darkness shut him off from others, shut him still more into
himself, his heart did not fail him. Blind at forty-three, he
wrote:--
We know little of Milton's home life during the next years. But
it cannot have been a happy one. His children ran wild. He
tried to teach them in some sort. He was dependent now on others
to read to him, and he made his daughters take their share of
this. He succeeded in teaching them to read in several
languages, but they understood not a word of what they read, so
it was no wonder that they looked upon it as a wearisome task.
They grew up with neither love for nor understanding of their
stern blind father. To them he was not the great poet whose name
should be one of the triumphs of English Literature. He was
merely a severe father and hard taskmaster.
Four years after his first wife died Milton married again. This
lady he never saw, but she was gentle and kind, and he loved her.
For fifteen months she wrought peace and order in his home, then
she too died, leaving her husband more lonely than before. He
mourned her loss in poetic words. He dreamed she came to him one
night:--
With this sonnet (for those lines are part of the last sonnet
Milton ever wrote) it would seem as if a new period began with
Milton, his second period of poetry writing. Who knows but that
it was the sharp sorrow of his loss which sent him back to
poetry. For throughout Milton's life we can see that it was
always something outside himself which made him write poetry. He
did not sing like the birds because he must, but because he was
asked to sing by some person, or made to sing by some
circumstance.
However that may be, it was now that Milton began his greatest
work, Paradise Lost. Twenty years before the thought had come to
him that he would write a grand epic. We have scarcely spoken of
an epic since that first of all our epics, the Story of Beowulf.
And although others had written epics, Milton is to be remembered
as the writer of the great English epic. At first he thought of
taking Arthur for his hero, but as more and more he saw what a
mass of fable had gathered round Arthur, as more and more he saw
how plain a hero Arthur seemed, stripped of that fable, his mind
turned from the subject. And when, at last, after twenty years
of almost unbroken silence as a poet, he once more let his organ
voice be heard, it was not a man he spoke of, but Man. He told
the story which Caedmon a thousand years before had told of the
war in heaven, of the temptation and fall of man, and of how Adam
and Eve were driven out of the happy garden.
"Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, Heavenly Muse."
You will remember, or if you look back to Chapter XIII you can
read again about the old poet Caedmon and what he wrote. It was
in 1655 that Junius published the so-called Caedmon Manuscript,
and Milton, who was so great a student, no doubt heard of it and
found some one to read it to him. And perhaps these poems helped
to decide him in his choice, although many years before he had
thought of writing on the subject.
Perhaps when you are older it may interest you to read the poems
of Milton and the poems of Caedmon together. Then you will see
how far ahead of the old poet Milton is in smooth beauty of
verse, how far behind him sometimes in tender knowledge of man
and woman. But I do not think you can hope to read Paradise Lost
with true pleasure yet a while. It is a long poem in blank
verse, much of it will seem dull to you, and you will find it
hard to be interested in Adam and Eve. For Milton set himself a
task of enormous difficulty when he tried to interest common men
and women in people who were without sin, who knew not good nor
evil. Yet if conceit, if self-assurance, if the want of the
larger charity which helps us to understand another's faults, are
sins, then Adam sinned long before he left Milton's Paradise. In
fact, Adam is often a bore, and at times he proves himself no
gentleman in the highest and best meaning of the word.
Milton worked slowly at this grand poem. Being blind he had now
to depend on others to write out what poetry he made in his own
mind, so it was written "in a parcel of ten, twenty, or thirty
verses at a time by whatever hand came next." We are told that
when he was dictating sometimes he sat leaning back sideways in
an easy-chair, with his leg flung over the arm. Sometimes he
dictated from his bed, and if in the middle of the night lines
came to him, whatever time it was he would ring for one of his
daughters to write them down for him, lest the thought should be
lost ere morning.
*Philips.
But now, while Milton's mind was full of splendid images, while
in spite of the discomfort and lonliness of his misruled home, he
was adding line to line of splendid sounding English, great
changes came over the land.
Oliver Cromwell died. To him succeeded his son Richard. But his
weak hands could not hold the scepter. He could not bind
together a rebel people as great Oliver had done. In a few
months he gave up the task, and little more than a year later the
people who had wept at the death of the great Protector, were
madly rejoicing at the return of a despot.
With a Stuart king upon the throne, there was no safety for the
rebel poet who had used all the power of his wit and learning
against the Royal cause. Pity for his blindness might not save
him. So listening to the warnings of his friends, he fled into
hiding somewhere in the city of London, "a place of retirement
and abscondence."
But after a time the danger passed, and Milton crept forth from
his hiding-place. It was perhaps pity for his blind
helplessness, perhaps contempt for his powerlessness, that saved
him, who can tell? His books were burned by the common hangman,
and he found himself in prison for a short time, but he was soon
released. While others were dying for their cause, the blind
poet whose trumpet call had been Liberty! Liberty! was
contemptuously allowed to live.
Now indeed had Milton fallen on dark and evil days. He had
escaped with his life and was free. But all that he had worked
for during the past twenty years he saw shattered as at one blow.
He saw his friends suffering imprisonment and death, himself
forsaken and beggared. He found no sympathy at home. His
daughters, who had not loved their father in his days of wealth
and ease, loved him still less in poverty. They sold his books,
cheated him with the housekeeping money, and in every way added
to his unhappiness. At length, as a way out of the misery and
confusion of his home, Milton married for the third time.
The new wife was a placid, kindly woman. She managed the house,
managed too the wild, unruly girls as no one had managed them
before. She saw the folly of keeping them, wholly untamed and
half-educated as they were, at home, and persuaded her husband to
let them learn something by which they might earn a living. So
they went out into the world "to learn some curious and ingenious
sorts of manufacture, that are proper for women to learn,
particularly embroideries in gold and silver."
Thus for the last few years of his life Milton was surrounded by
peace and content such as he had never before known. All through
life he had never had any one to love him deeply except his
father and his mother, whose love for him was perhaps not all
wise. Those who had loved him in part had feared him too, and
the fear outdid the love. But now in the evening of his days, if
no perfect love came to him, he found at least kindly
understanding. His wife admired him and cared for him. She had
a fair face and pretty voice, and it is pleasant to picture the
gray-haired poet sitting at his organ playing while his wife
sings. He cannot see the sun gleam and play in her golden hair,
or the quick color come and go in her fair face, but at least he
can take joy in the sound of her sweet fresh voice.
It was soon after this third marriage that Paradise Lost was
finished and published. And even in those wild Restoration days,
when laughter and pleasure alone were sought, men acknowledged
the beauty and grandeur of this grave poem. "This man cuts us
all out, and the ancients too," said Dryden, another and younger
poet.
Life had now come for Milton to a peaceful evening time, but his
work was not yet finished. He had two great poems still to
write.
The second poem was Samson Agonistes, which tells the tragic
story of Samson in his blindness. And no one reading it can fail
to see that it is the story too of Milton in his blindness. It
is Milton himself who speaks when he makes Samson exclaim:--
This was Milton's last poem. He lived still four years longer
and still wrote. But his singing days were over, and what he now
wrote was in prose. His life's work was done, and one dark
November evening in 1674 he peacefully died.
*Wordsworth.
But John Bunyan's father was not this kind of tinker. He did not
wander about the countryside, but lived at the little village of
Elstow, about a mile from the town of Bedford, as his father had
before him. He was a poor and honest workman who mended his
neighbors' kettles and pans, and did his best to keep his family
in decent comfort.
One thing which shows this is that little John was sent to
school. In those days learning, even learning to read and write,
was not the just due of every one. It was only for the well-to-
do. "But yet," says Bunyan himself, "notwithstanding the
meanness and inconsiderableness of my parents, it pleased God to
put it into their hearts to put me to school, to learn me both to
read and write."
Bunyan was born when the struggle between King and people was
beginning to be felt, and was a great boy of fourteen when at
last the armies of King and Parliament met on the battlefield of
Edgehill. To many this struggle was a struggle for freedom in
religion. From end to end of our island the question of religion
was the burning question of the day. Religion had wrought itself
into the lives of people. In those days of few books the Bible
was the one book which might be found in almost every house. The
people carried it in their hands, and its words were ever on
their lips. But the religion which came to be the religion of
more than half the people of England was a stern one. They
forgot the Testament of Love, they remembered only the Testament
of Wrath. They made the narrow way narrower, and they believed
that any who strayed from it would be punished terribly and
eternally. It was into this stern world that little John Bunyan
was born, and just as a stern religious struggle was going on in
England so a stern religious struggle went on within his little
heart. He heard people round him talk of sins and death, of a
dreadful day of judgment, of wrath to come. These things laid
hold of his childish mind and he began to believe that in the
sight of God he must be a desperate sinner. Dreadful dreams came
to him at night. He dreamed that the Evil One was trying to
carry him off to a darksome place there to be "bound down with
the chains and bonds of darkness, unto the judgment of the great
day." Such dreams made night terrible to him.
Bunyan tells us that he swore and told lies and that he was the
ringleader in all the wickedness of the village. But perhaps he
was not so bad as he would have us believe, for he was always
very severe in his judgments of himself. Perhaps he was not
worse than many other boys who did not feel that they had sinned
beyond all forgiveness. And in spite of his awful thoughts and
terrifying dreams Bunyan still went on being a naughty boy; he
still told lies and swore.
"When I was a soldier," he says, "I, with others, were drawn out
to go to such a place to besiege it. But when I was just ready
to go one of the company desired to go in my room. To which,
when I had consented, he took my place. And coming to the siege,
as he stood sentinel, he was shot in the head with a musket
bullet, and died.
Some time after Bunyan left the army, and while he was still very
young, he married. Both he and his wife were, he says, "as poor
as poor might be, not having so much household stuff as a dish or
a spoon betwixt us both. Yet this she had for her part, The
Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven and The Practice of Piety, which
her father had left her when he died."
These two books Bunyan read with his wife, picking up again the
art of reading, which he had been taught at school, and which he
had since almost forgotten. He began now to go a great deal to
church, and one of his chief pleasures was helping to ring the
bells. To him the services were a joy. He loved the singing,
the altar with its candles, the rich robes, the white surplices,
and everything that made the service beautiful. Yet the terrible
struggle between good and evil in his soul went on. He seemed to
hear voices in the air, good voices and bad voices, voices that
accused him, voices that tempted. He was a most miserable man,
and seemed to himself to be one of the most wicked, and yet
perhaps the worst thing he could accuse himself of doing was
playing games on Sunday, and pleasing himself by bell-ringing.
He gave up his bell-ringing because it was a temptation to
vanity. "Yet my mind hankered, therefore I would go to the
steeple house and look on, though I durst not ring." One by one
he gave up all the things he loved, things that even if we think
them wrong do not seem to us to merit everlasting punishment.
But at last the long struggle ended and his tortured mind found
rest in the love of Christ.
In the same year as Bunyan lost his friend his wife too died, and
he was left alone with four children, two of them little girls,
one of whom was blind. She was, because of that, all the more
dear to him. "She lay nearer to my heart than all beside," he
says.
And now Bunyan's friends found out his great gift of speech.
They begged him to preach, but he was so humble and modest that
at first he refused. At length, however, he was over-persuaded.
He began his career as a minister and soon became famous. People
came from long distances to hear him, and he preached not only in
Elstow and Bedford but in all the country round. He preached,
not only in churches, but in barns and in fields, by the roadside
or in the market-place, anywhere, in fact, where he could gather
an audience.
It was while Cromwell ruled that Bunyan began this ministry. But
in spite of all the battles that had been fought for religious
freedom, there was as yet no real religious freedom in England.
Each part, as it became powerful, tried to tyrannize over every
other party, and no one was allowed to preach without a license.
The Presbyterians were now in power; Bunyan was a Baptist, and
some of the Presbyterians would gladly have silenced him. Yet
during Cromwell's lifetime he went his way in peace. Then the
Restoration came. A few months later Bunyan was arrested for
preaching without a license. Those who now ruled "were angry
with the tinker because he strove to mend souls as well as
kettles and pans."* Before he was taken prisoner Bunyan was
warned of his danger, and if he had "been minded to have played
the coward" he might have escaped. But he would not try to save
himself. "If I should now run to make an escape," he said, "it
will be a very ill savour in the country. For what will my weak
and newly-converted brethren think of it but that I was not so
strong in deed as I was in word."
*Henry Deane.
So back to Bedford she went, and with beating heart and trembling
limbs sought out the judges. Again she was kindly received, but
again her petition was of no avail. The law was the law. Bunyan
had broken the law and must suffer. He would not promise to
cease from preaching, she would as little promise for him. "My
lord," she said, "he dares not leave off preaching as long as he
can speak."
So it was all useless labor, neither side could or would give way
one inch. Bursting into tears the poor young wife turned away.
But she wept "not so much because they were so hard-hearted
against me and my husband, but to think what a sad account such
poor creatures will have to give at the coming of the Lord, when
they shall then answer for all things whatsoever they have done
in the body, whether it be good, or whether it be bad."
Seeing there was no help for it, Bunyan set himself bravely to
endure his imprisonment. And, in truth, this was not very
severe. Strangely enough he was allowed to preach to his fellow-
prisoners, he was even at one time allowed to go to church. But
the great thing for us is that he wrote books. Already, before
his imprisonment, he had written several books, and now he wrote
that for which he is most famous, the Pilgrim's Progress.
It is a book so well known and so well loved that I think I need
say little about it. In the form of a dream Bunyan tells, as you
know, the story of Christian who set out on his long and
difficult pilgrimage from the City of Destruction to the City of
the Blest. He tells of all Christian's trials and adventures on
the way, of how he encounters giants and lion, of how he fights
with a great demon, and of how at length he arrives at his
journey's end in safety. A great writer has said, "There is no
book in our literature on which we would so readily stake the
fame of the old unpolluted English language, no book which shows
so well how rich that language is in its own proper wealth, and
how little it has been improved by all that it has borrowed."*
*Macaulay.
*Richardson.
"So he went on, and Apollyon met him. Now the Monster was
hideous to behold. He was clothed with scales like a fish, and
they are his pride. He had wings like a dragon, feet like a
bear, and out of his belly came fire and smoke. And his mouth
was as the mouth of a lion. When he came up to Christian he
beheld him with a disdainful countenance, and thus began to
question him.
"Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the Way
and said, 'I am void of fear in this matter. Prepare thyself to
die, for I swear by my Infernal Den that thou shalt go no
further. Here will I spill thy soul!'
"Then did Christian draw, for he saw it was time to bestir him,
and Apollyon as fast made at him, throwing darts as thick as
hail, by the which, notwithstanding all that Christian could do
to avoid it, Apollyon wounded him in his head, his hand, and
foot. This made Christian give a little back. Apollyon
therefore followed his work amain, and Christian again took
courage and resisted as manfully as he could. This sore combat
lasted for above half a day, even till Christian was almost quite
spent. For you must know that Christian, by reason of his
wounds, must needs grow weaker and weaker.
Bunyan, too, wrote a good deal of rime, but for the most part it
can hardly be called poetry. It is for his prose that we
remember him. Yet who would willingly part with the song of the
shepherd-boy in the second part of the Pilgrim's Progress:--
When Bunyan had been in prison for six years he was set free, but
as he at once began to preach he was immediately seized and
reimprisoned. He remained shut up for six years longer. Then
King Charles II passed an Act called the Declaration of
Indulgence. By this Act all the severe laws against those who
did not conform to the Church of England were done away with,
and, in consequence, Bunyan was set free. Charles passed this
Act, not because he was sorry for the Nonconformists--as all who
would not conform to the Church of England were called--but
because he wished to free the Roman Catholics, and he could not
do that without freeing the Nonconformists too. Two years later
Bunyan was again imprisoned because "in contempt of his Majesty's
good laws he preached or teached in other manner than according
to the Liturgy or practice of the Church of England." But this
time his imprisonment lasted only six months. And I must tell
you that many people now think that it was during this later
short imprisonment that Bunyan wrote the Pilgrim's Progress, and
not during the earlier and longer.
*Brown.
"May it please your Majesty," replied he, "I would gladly give up
all my learning if I could preach like that tinker."
Bunyan became the head of the Baptist Church. Near and far he
traveled, preaching and teaching, honored and beloved wherever he
went. And his word had such power, his commands had such weight,
that people playfully called him Bishop Bunyan. Yet he was "not
puffed up in prosperity, nor shaken in adversity, always holding
the golden mean."*
*Charles Doe.
Death found Bunyan still busy, still kindly. A young man who
lived at Reading had offended his father so greatly that the
father cast him off. In his trouble the young man came to
Bunyan. He at once mounted his horse and rode off to Reading.
There he saw the angry father, and persuaded him to make peace
with his repentant son.
And may we not believe that Bunyan, when he reached the other
side, heard again, as he had once before heard in his immortal
dream, "all the bells in the city ring again with joy," and that
it was said unto him, "Enter ye into the joy of our Lord"?
YEAR 9
Dryden did not invent the heroic couplet, but it was he who first
made it famous. "It was he," says Scott, "who first showed that
the English language was capable of uniting smoothness and
strength." But when you come to read Dryden's poems you may
perhaps feel that in gaining the smoothness of Art they have lost
something of the beauty of Nature. The perfect lines with their
regular sounding rimes almost weary us at length, and we are glad
to turn to the rougher beauty of some earlier poet.
But before speaking more of what Dryden did let me tell you a
little of what we know of his life.
When John Dryden left school he went, like nearly all the poets,
to Cambridge. Of what he did at college we know very little. He
may have been wild, for more than once he got into trouble, and
once he was "rebuked on the head" for speaking scornfully of some
nobleman. He was seven years at Cambridge, but he looked back on
these years with no joy. He had no love for his University, and
even wrote:--
Already at college Dryden had begun to write poetry, but his poem
on the death of Cromwell is perhaps the first that is worth
remembering:--
"Swift and relentless through the land he past,
Like that bold Greek, who did the East subdue;
And made to battles of such heroic haste
As if on wings of victory he flew.
*Astroe Redux.
With the Restoration came the re-opening of the theaters, and for
fourteen years Dryden was known as a dramatic poet. There is
little need to tell you anything about his plays, for you would
not like to read them. During the reign of Puritanism in England
the people had been forbidden even innocent pleasures. The
Maypole dances had been banished, games and laughter were frowned
upon. Now that these too stern laws had been taken away, people
plunged madly into pleasure: laughter became coarse, merriment
became riotous. Puritan England had lost the sense of where
innocent pleasure ends and wickedness begins. In another way
Restoration England did the same. The people of the Restoration
saw fun and laughter in plays which seem to us now simply vulgar
and coarse as well as dull. The coarseness, too, is not the
coarseness of an ignorant people who know no better, but rather
of a people who do know better and who yet prefer to be coarse.
I do not mean to say that there are no well-drawn characters, no
beautiful lines, in Dryden's plays for that would not be true.
Many of them are clever, the songs in them are often beautiful,
but nearly all are unpleasant to read. The taste of the
Restoration times condemned Dryden to write in a way unworthy of
himself for money. "Neither money nor honour--that in two words
was the position of writers after the Restoration."*
Had Dryden written nothing but plays we should not remember him
as one of our great poets. Yet it was during this time of play-
writing that Dryden was made Poet Laureate and Historiographer
Royal with the salary of 200 pounds a year and a butt of sack.
It was after he became Poet Laureate that Dryden began to write
his satires, the poems for which he is most famous. Although a
satire is a poem which holds wickedness up to scorn, sometimes it
was used, not against the wicked and the foolish, but against
those who merely differed from the writer in politics or religion
or any other way of life or thought. Such was Dryden's best
satire--thought by some people the best in the English language.
It is called Absalom and Achitophel. To understand it we must
know and understand the history of the times. Here in the guise
of the old Bible story Dryden seeks to hold Lord Shaftesbury up
to scorn because he tried to have a law passed which would
prevent the King's brother James from succeeding to the throne,
and which would instead place the Duke of Monmouth there. When
the poem was published Shaftesbury was in the Tower awaiting his
trial for high treason. The poem had a great effect, but
Shaftesbury was nevertheless set free.
In spite of the fine sounding lines you will perhaps never care
to read Absalom and Achitophel save as a footnote to history.
But Dryden's was the age of satire. Those he wrote called forth
others. He was surrounded and followed by many imitators, and it
is well to remember Dryden as the greatest of them all. His
satires were so powerful, too, that the people against whom they
were directed felt them keenly, and no wonder. "There are
passages in Dryden's satires in which every couplet has not only
the force but the sound of a slap in the face," says a recent
writer.*
*Saintsbury.
Among the younger writers Dryden took the place Ben Jonson used
hold. He kinged it in the coffee-house, then the fashionable
place at which the wits gathered, as Jonson had in the tavern.
He was given the most honored seat, in summer by the window, in
winter by the fire. And although he was not a great talker like
Jonson, the young wits crowded around him, eager for the honor of
a word or a pinch from the great man's snuff-box.
True, Dryden did not translate literally, that is word for word.
He paraphrased rather, and in doing so he Drydenized the
originals, often adding whole lines of his own. Among his
translations was Virgil's Aeneid, which long before, you remember,
Surrey had begun in blank verse. But blank verse was not what
the age in which Dryden lived desired, and he knew it. So he
wrote in rimed couplets. Long before this he had turned Milton's
Paradise Lost into rimed couplets, making it into an opera, which
he called The State of Innocence. An opera is a play set to
music, but this opera was never set to music, and never sung or
acted. Dryden, we know, admired Milton's poetry greatly. "This
man cuts us all out," he had said. Yet he thought he could make
the poem still better, and asked Milton's leave to turn it into
rime. "Ay, you may tag my verses if you will," replied the great
blind man.
If you turn back to page 401 you can compare this with Milton's
own version.
Again he says: "But there are other judges, who think I ought
not to have translated Chaucer into English, out of a quite
contrary notion. They suppose there is a certain veneration due
to his old language, and that it is little less than profanation
and sacrilege to alter it. They are further of opinion that
somewhat of his good sense will suffer in this transfusion, and
much of the beauty of his thoughts will infallibly be lost, which
appear with more grace in their old habit." I think all of us
who can read Chaucer in his own language must agree with these
judges. But Dryden goes on to say he does not write for such,
but for those who cannot read Chaucer's English. Are they who
can understand Chaucer to deprive the greater part of their
countrymen of the same advantage, and hoard him up, as misers do
their gold, only to look on it themselves and hinder others from
making use of it? he asks.
This is very good reasoning, and all that can be said against it
is that when Dryden has done with Chaucer, although he tells the
same tales, they are no longer Chaucer's but Dryden's. The
spirit is changed. But that you will be able to feel only when
you grow older and are able to read the two and balance them one
against the other. Dryden translated only a few of the
Canterbury Tales, and the one he liked best was the knight's tale
of Palamon and Arcite. He published it in a book which he called
Fables, and it is, I think, as a narrative or story-telling poet
in these fables, and in his translations, that he keeps most
interest for the young people of to-day.
You have by this time, I hope, read the story of Palamon and
Arcite at least in Tales from Chaucer, and here I will give you a
few lines first from Dryden and then from Chaucer, so that you
can judge for yourselves of the difference. In them the poets
describe Emelia as she appeared on that May morning when Palamon
first looked forth from his prison and saw her walk in the
garden:--
That is Dryden's, and this is how Chaucer tells of the same May
morning:--
If you can see the difference between these two quotations you
can see the difference between the poetry of Dryden's age and all
that went before him. It is the difference between art and
nature. Chaucer sings like a bird, Dryden like a trained concert
singer who knows that people are listening to him. There is room
for both in life. We want and need both.
If you can feel the difference between Chaucer and Dryden you
will understand in part what I meant by saying that Dryden was
the expression of his time. For in Restoration times the taste
was for art rather than for natural beauty. The taste was for
what was clever, witty, and polished rather than for the simple,
stately grandeur of what was real and true. Poetry was utterly
changed. It no longer went to the heart but to the brain.
Dryden's poetry does not make the tears start to our eye or the
blood come to our cheek, but it flatters our ear with its
smoothness and elegance; it tickles our fancy with its wit.
You will understand still better what the feeling of the times
was when I tell you that Dryden, with the help of another poet,
re-wrote Shakespeare's Tempest and made it to suit the fashion of
the day. In doing so they utterly spoiled it. As literature it
is worthless; as helping us to understand the history of those
times it is useful. But although The Tempest, as re-written by
Dryden, is bad, one of the best of his plays is founded upon
another of Shakespeare's. This play is called All for Love or
the World Well Lost, and is founded upon Shakespeare's Antony and
Cleopatra. It is not written in Dryden's favorite heroic couplet
but in blank verse. "In my style," he says, "I have professed to
imitate the divine Shakespeare, which, that I might perform more
freely, I have disencumbered myself from rhyme. Not that I
condemn my former way, but that this is more proper to my present
purpose." And when you come to read this play you will find
that, master as Dryden was of the heroic couplet, he could write,
too, when he chose, fine blank verse.
Dryden was a great poet, and he dominated his own age and the age
to come. But besides being a poet he was a great prose-writer.
His prose is clear and fine and almost modern. We do not have to
follow him through sentences so long that we lose the sense
before we come to the end. "He found English of brick and left
it marble," says a late writer, and when we read his prose we
almost believe that saying to be true. He was the first of
modern critics, that is he was able to judge the works of others
surely and well. And many of his criticisms of men were so true
that we accept them now even as they were accepted then. Here is
what he says of Chaucer in his preface to The Fables:--
The Fables was the last book Dryden wrote. He was growing to be
an old man, and a few months after it was published he became
very ill. "John Dryden, Esq., the famous poet, lies a-dying,"
said the newspapers on the 30th April, 1700. One May morning he
closed his eyes for ever, just as
For there was a time when there were no newspapers, nothing for
father to read at breakfast-time, and no old newspapers to
crumple up and light fires with. The first real printed English
newspaper was called the Weekly News. It was published in 1622,
while King Charles I was still upon the throne.
But this first paper and others that came after it were very
small. The whole paper was not so large as a page of one of our
present halfpenny papers. The news was told baldly without any
remarks upon it, and when there was not enough news it was the
fashion to fill up the space with chapters from the Bible.
Sometimes, too, a space was left blank on purpose, so that those
who bought the paper in town might write in their own little bit
of news before sending it off to country friends.
Defoe was one of the first to change this, to write articles and
comments upon the news. Gradually newspapers became plentiful.
And when Government by party became the settled form of our
Government, each party had its own newspaper and used it to help
on its own side and abuse the other.
Daniel Defoe, born in 1661, was the son of a London butcher names
James Foe. Why Daniel, who prided himself on being a true-born
Englishman, Frenchified his name by adding a "De" to it we do not
know, and he was over forty before he changed plain Foe into
Defoe.
By this time Defoe had begun to write, and was already known as a
clever author. Now some one wrote a book accusing William among
many other "crimes" of being a foreigner. Defoe says, "this
filled me with a kind of rage"; and he replied with a poem called
The True-born Englishman. It became popular at once, thousands
of copies being sold in the first few months. Every one read it
from the King in his palace to the workman in his hut, and long
afterwards Defoe was content to sign his books "By the author of
'The True-born Englishman.'" It made Defoe known to the King.
"This poem," he said, "was the occasion of my being known to his
Majesty." He was received and employed by him and "above the
capacity of my deserving, rewarded." He was given a small
appointment in the Civil Service. All his life after Defoe loved
King William and was his staunch friend, using all the power of
his clever pen to make the unloved Dutch King better understood
of his people. But when King William died and Queen Anne ruled
in his stead Defoe fell on evil times.
In those days the quarrels about religion were not yet over.
There was a party in the Church which would very willingly have
seen the Nonconformists or Dissenters persecuted. Dissenters
were like to have an evil time. To show how wrong persecution
was, Defoe wrote a little pamphlet which he called The Shortest
Way with the Dissenters. He wrote as if he were very angry
indeed with the Dissenters. He said they had been far too kindly
treated and that if he had his way he would make a law that
"whoever was found at a conventicle should be banished the nation
and the preacher be hanged. We should soon see an end of the
tale--they would all come to Church, and one age would make us
all one again."
Defoe meant this for satire. A satire is, you remember, a work
which holds up folly or wickedness to ridicule. He meant to show
the High Churchmen how absurd and wicked was their desire to
punish the Dissenters for worshiping God in their own way. He
meant to make the world laugh at them. But at first the High
Churchmen did not see that it was meant to ridicule them. They
greeted the author of this pamphlet as a friend and ally. The
Dissenters did not see the satire either, and found in the writer
a new and most bitter enemy.
But when at last Defoe's meaning became plain the High Church
party was very angry, and resolved to punish him. Defoe fled
into hiding. But a reward of fifty pounds was offered for his
discovery, and, "rather than others should be ruined by his
mistake," Defoe gave himself up.
But although Defoe's friends could take the sting out of the
terrible hours during which he stood as an object for mockery
they could do little else for him. So he went back to prison to
remain there during the Queen's pleasure.
From prison Defoe could not manage his factory. He had to let
that go, losing with it thousands of pounds. For the second time
he saw himself ruined. But he had still left to him his pen and
his undaunted courage. So, besides writing many pamphlets in
prison, Defoe started a paper called the Review. It appeared at
first once, then twice, and at last three times a week. Unlike
our papers of to-day, which are written by many hands, Defoe
wrote the whole of the Review himself, and continued to do so for
years. It contained very little news and many articles, and when
we turn these worn and yellowing pages we find much that,
interesting in those days, has lost interest for us. But we also
find articles which, worded in clear, strong, truly English
English, seem to us as fresh and full of life as when they were
written more than two hundred years ago. We find as well much
that is of keen historical interest, and we gain some idea of the
undaunted courage of the author when we remember that the first
numbers of the Review at least were penned in a loathsome prison
where highwaymen, pirates, cut-throats, and common thieves were
his chief companions.
FOR more than a year and a half Defoe remained in prison; then he
was set free.
A new Government had come into power. It was pointed out to the
Queen that it was a mistake to make an enemy of so clever an
author as Defoe. Then he was set at liberty, but on condition
that he should use his pen to support the Government. So
although Defoe was now free to all seeming, this was really the
beginning of bondage. He was no longer free in mind, and by
degrees he became a mere hanger-on of Government, selling the
support of his pen to whichever party was in power.
We cannot follow him through all the twists and turns of his
politics, nor through all his ups and downs in life, nor mention
all the two hundred and fifty books and pamphlets that he wrote.
It was an adventurous life he led, full of dark and shadowy
passages which we cannot understand and so perhaps cannot pardon.
But whether he sold his pen or no we are bound to confess that
Defoe's desire was towards the good, towards peace, union, and
justice.
One thing he fought for with all his buoyant strength was the
Union between England and Scotland. It had been the desire of
William III ere he died, it had now become the still stronger
desire of Queen Anne and her ministers. So Defoe took "a long
winter, a chargeable, and, as it proved, hazardous journey" to
Scotland. There he threw himself into the struggle, doing all he
could for the Union. He has left for us a history of that
struggle,* which perhaps better than any other makes us realize
the unrest of the Scottish people, the anger, the fear, the
indecision, with which they were filled. "People went up and
down wondering and amazed, expecting every day strange events,
afraid of peace, afraid of war. Many knew not which way to fix
their resolution. They could not be clear for the Union, yet
they saw death at the door in its breaking off--death to their
liberty, to their religion, and to their country." Better than
any other he gives a picture of the "infinite struggles, clamor,
railing, and tumult of party." Let me give, in his own words, a
description of a riot in the streets of Edinburgh:--
"His lady, in the utmost despair with this fright, came to the
window, with two candles in her hand, that she might be known;
and cried out, for God's sake to call the guards. An honest
Apothecary in the town, who knew her voice, and saw the distress
she was in, and to whom the family, under God, is obliged for
their deliverance, ran immediately down to the town guard. But
they would not stir without the Lord Provost's order. But that
being soon obtained, one Captain Richardson, who commanded,
taking about thirty men with him, marched bravely up to them; and
making his way with great resolution through the crowd, they
flying, but throwing stones and hallooing at him, and his men.
He seized the foot of the stair case; and then boldly went up,
cleared the stair, and took six of the rabble in the very act,
and so delivered the gentleman and his family.
"But this did not put a stop to the general tumult, though it
delivered this particular family. For the rabble, by this time,
were prodigiously increased, and went roving up and down the
town, breaking the windows of the Members of Parliament and
insulting them in their coaches in the streets. They put out all
the lights that they might not be discovered. And the author of
this had one great stone thrown at him for but looking out of a
window. For they suffered nobody to look out, especially with
any lights, lest they should know faces, and inform against them
afterwards.
"By this time it was about eight or nine o'clock at night, and
now they were absolute masters of the city. And it was reported
they were going to shut up all the ports.* The Lord Commissioner
being informed of that, sent a party of the foot guards, and took
possession of the Netherbow, which is a gate in the middle of the
High Street, as Temple Bar between the City of London and the
Court.
"The city was now in a terrible fright, and everybody was under
concern for their friends. The rabble went raving about the
streets till midnight, frequently beating drums, raising more
people. When my Lord Commissioner being informed, there were a
thousand of the seamen and rabble come up from Leith; and
apprehending if it were suffered to go on, it might come to a
dangerous head, and be out of his power to suppress, he sent for
the Lord Provost, and demanded that the guards should march into
the city.
Although Defoe did all he could to bring the Union about he felt
for and with the poor distracted people. He saw that amid the
strife of parties, proud, ignorant, mistaken, it may be, the
people were still swayed by love of country, love of freedom.
"Nothing but Union, Union, says one now that wants diversion; I
am quite tired of it, and we hope, 'tis as good as over now.
Prithee, good Mr. Review, let's have now and then a touch of
something else to make us merry." But Defoe assures his readers
he means to go on writing about the Union until he can see some
prospect of calm among the men who are trying to make dispeace.
"Then I shall be the first that shall cease calling upon them to
Peace."
The years went on, Defoe always living a stormy life amid the
clash of party politics, always writing, writing. More than once
his noisy, journalistic pen brought him to prison. But he was
never a prisoner long, never long silenced. Yet although Defoe
wrote so much and lived at a time when England was full of witty
writers he was outside the charmed circle of wits who pretended
not to know of his existence. "One of these authors," says
another writer, "(the fellow that was pilloried, I have forgotten
his name), is indeed so grave, sententious, dogmatical a rogue
that there is no enduring him."*
*Johnathan Swift.
At length when Defoe was nearly sixty years old he wrote the book
which has brought him world-wide and enduring fame. Need I tell
you of that book? Surely not. For who does not know Robinson
Crusoe, or, as the first title ran, "The Life and Strange
Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner, who
lived eight-and-twenty years all alone in an uninhabited Island
on the Coast of America near the Mouth of the great River
Oroonoque, having been cast on shore by shipwreck, wherein all
the men perished but himself. With an account how he was at last
strangely delivered by Pirates. Written by himself." In those
days, you see, they were not afraid of long titles. The book,
too, is long. "Yet," as another great writer says,* "was there
ever anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its
readers, except Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's
Progress?"
*Samuel Johnson.
The book was a tremendous success. It pleased the men and women
and children of two hundred years ago as much as it pleases them
to-day. Within a few months four editions had been sold. Since
then, till now, there has never been a time when Robinson Crusoe
has not been read. The editions of it have been countless. It
has been edited and re-edited, it has been translated and
abridged, turned into shorthand and into poetry, and published in
every form imaginable, and at every price, from one penny to many
pounds.
Defoe got the idea of his story from the adventures of a Scots
sailor named Alexander Selkirk. This sailor quarreled with his
captain, and was set ashore upon an uninhabited island where he
remained alone for more than four years. At the end of that time
he was rescued by a passing ship and brought home to England.
Out of this slender tale Defoe made his fascinating story so full
of adventure.
*William Minto.
Finding that Robinson Crusoe was such a success, Defoe began to
write other stories. He wrote of thieves, pirates and rogues.
These stories have the same show of truth as Robinson Crusoe.
Defoe, no doubt, got the ideas for them from the stories of the
rogues with whom he mixed in prison. But they have nearly all
been forgotten, for although they are clever the heroes and
heroines are coarse and the story of their adventures is
unpleasant reading. Yet as history, showing us the state of the
people in the days of Queen Anne and of George I, they are
useful.
Defoe was now well off. He had built himself a handsome house
surrounded by a pleasant garden. He had carriages and horses and
lived in good style with his wife and beautiful daughters. There
seemed to be no reason why he should not live happily and at ease
for the rest of his life. But suddenly one day, for some unknown
reason, he fled from his comfortable home into hiding. Why he
did this no one can tell. For two years he lived a homeless,
skulking fugitive. Then in 1731 he died, if not in poverty at
least in loneliness and distress of mind.
BOOKS TO READ
Yet when we read the sad story of the life of Jonathan Swift who
has in Gulliver's Travels given to countless children, and grown-
up people too, countless hours of pleasure, we are forced to
believe that so he passed a great part of his life. Swift was
misunderstood and misunderstanding. It was not that he had no
love given to him, for all his life through he found women to
love him. But it was his unhappiness that he took that love only
to turn it to bitterness in his heart, that he took that love so
as to leave a stain on him and it ever after. He had friendship
too. But in the hands stretched out to help him in his need he
saw only insult. In the kindness that was given to him he saw
only a grudging charity, and yet he was angry with the world and
with man that he did not receive more.
In the life of Jonathan Swift there are things which puzzle even
the wisest. Children would find those things still harder to
understand, so I will not try to explain them, but will tell you
a little that you will readily follow about the life of this
lonely man with the biting pen and aching heart.
Jonathan Swift's father and mother were very poor, so poor indeed
that their friends said it was folly for them to marry. And when
after about two years of married life the husband died, he left
his young wife burdened with debts and with a little baby girl to
keep. It was not until a few months after his father's death
that Jonathan was born.
As the years went on Swift found his position grow more and more
irksome. At last he began to think of entering the Church as a
means of earning an independent livelihood and becoming his own
master. And one day, having a quarrel with Sir William, he left
his house in a passion and went back to Ireland. Here after some
trouble he was made a priest and received a little seaside parish
worth about a hundred pounds a year.
Swift was now his own master, but he found it dull. He had so
few parishioners that it is said he used to go down to the
seashore and skiff stones in order to gather a congregation. For
he thought if the people would not come to hear sermons they
would come at least to stare at the mad clergyman, and for years
he was remembered as the "mad clergyman." And now because he
found his freedom dull, and for various other reasons, when Sir
William asked him to come back he gladly came. This time he was
much happier as a member of Sir William's household than he had
been before.
It was now that Swift wrote the two little books which first made
him famous. These were The Battle of the Books and A Tale of a
Tub. The Battle of the Books rose out of a silly quarrel in
which Sir William Temple had taken part as to whether the ancient
or the modern writers were the best. Swift took Temple's side
and wrote to prove that the ancient writers were best. But, as
it has been said, he wrote so cleverly that he proved the
opposite against his will, for nowhere in the writings of the
ancients is there anything so full or humor and satire as The
Battle of the Books.
Swift imagines a real battle to have taken place among the books
in the King's library at St. James's Palace. The books leave the
shelves, some on horseback, some on foot, and armed with sword
and spear throw themselves into the fray, but we are left quite
uncertain as to who gained the victory. This little book is a
satire, and, like all Swift's famous satires, is in prose not in
poetry. In the preface he says, "Satire is a sort of glass,
wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but
their own; which is the chief reason for that kind reception it
meets with in the world, and that so very few are offended with
it." It is not a book that you will care to read for a long
time, for to find it interesting you must know both a good deal
about Swift's own times and about the books that fight the
battle.
You will not care either for A Tale of a Tub. And yet it is the
book above all others which one must read, and read with
understanding, if one would get even a little knowledge of
Swift's special genius. It was the book, nevertheless, which
more than any other stood in his way in after life.
*Lord Orrery.
When Sir William Temple died Swift went back to Ireland, and
after a little time he once more received a Church living there.
But here, as before, his parish was very small, so that sometimes
he had only his clerk as congregation. Then he would begin the
service with "Dearly beloved Roger, the Scripture moveth you and
me," instead of "Dearly beloved brethren," as the Prayer Book has
it.
Sir William had left Swift some money; he had also left some to
Esther Johnson, the little girl Swift used to teach. She had
grown into a beautiful and witty woman and now she too, with a
friend, went to Ireland, and for the rest of her life lived there
near Swift.
Esther is the Persian word for star; Stella the Latin. Swift
called his girl-friend Stella, and as Stella she has become
famous in our literature. For when Swift was away from home he
wrote letters to her which we now have under the name of the
Journal to Stella. Here we see the great man in another light.
Here he is no longer armed with lightning, his pen is no longer
dipped in poison, but in friendly, simple fashion he tells all
that happens to him day by day. He tells what he thinks and what
he feels, where and when he dines, when he gets up, and when he
goes to bed, all the gossiping details interesting to one who
loves us and whom we love. And with it all we get a picture of
the times in which he lived, of the politics of the day, of the
great men he moved among. Swift always addresses both Stella and
her companion Mistress Dingley, and the letters are everywhere
full of tender, childish nonsense. He invented what he called a
"little language," using all sorts of quaint and babyish words
and strange strings of capital letters, M. D., for instance,
meaning my dears, M. E., Madam Elderly, or D. D., Dear Dingley,
and so on. Throughout, too, we come on little bits of doggerel
rimes, bad puns, simple jokes, mixed up with scraps of politics,
with threatenings of war, with party quarrels, with all kinds of
stray fragments of news which bring the life of the times vividly
before us. The letters were never meant for any one but Stella
and Mistress Dingley to see, and sometimes when we are reading
the affectionate nonsense we feel as if no one ought to have seen
it but these two. And yet it gives us one whole side of Swift
that we should never have known but for it. It is not easy to
give an idea of this book, it must be read to be understood, but
I will give you a few extracts from it:--
Or again:--
DURING the years in which Swift found time to write these playful
letters to Stella he was growing into a man of power. Like Defoe
he was a journalist, but one of far more authority. The power of
his pen was such that he was courted by his friends, feared by
his enemies. He threw himself into the struggle of party, first
as a Whig, then as a Tory; but as a friend said of him later, "He
was neither Whig nor Tory, neither Jacobite nor Republican. He
was Dr. Swift."* He was now, he says:--
*Lord Orrery.
And he felt that he deserved reward for what he had done for his
party. He thought that he should have been made a bishop. But
even in those days, when little thought was given to the fitness
of a man for such a position, the Queen steadily refused to make
the author of A Tale of a Tub a bishop.
Again Swift felt that he was unjustly treated, and even when he
was at length made Dean of St. Patrick's that consoled him
little. He longed for power, and owned that he was never so
happy as when treated like a lord. He longed for wealth, for
"wealth," he said, "is liberty, and liberty is a blessing fittest
for a philosopher." And if Swift was displeased at being made
only a Dean, the Irish people were equally displeased with him as
their Dean. As he rode through the streets of Dublin to take
possession of his Deanery, the people threw stones and mud at him
and hooted him as he passed. The clergy, too, made his work as
Dean as hard as possible. But Swift set himself to conquer them,
and soon he had his own way even in trifles.
It was now that he published the book upon which his fame most
surely rests--Gulliver's Travels. It is a book which has given
pleasure to numberless people ever since. Yet Swift said
himself: "The chief end I propose to myself in all my labours is
to vex the world rather than divert it, and if I could compass
that design without hurting my own person or fortune, I would be
the most indefatigable writer you have ever seen. . . . I hate
and detest that animal called man, although I heartily love John,
Peter, Thomas, and so forth. . . . Upon this great foundation of
misanthropy, the whole building of my Travels is erected."
But whether Swift at the time vexed the world with Gulliver or
not, ever since he has succeeded in diverting it. Gulliver's
Travels is an allegory and a satire, but there is no need now to
do more than enjoy it as a story.
In the fourth his men mutiny and put him ashore on an unknown
land. There he finds that horses are the rulers, and a terrible
kind of degraded human being their slaves and servants.
In the last part the satire is too bitter, the degradation of man
too terribly insisted upon to make it pleasant reading, and
altogether the first two stories are the most interesting.
"I lay down on the grass, which was very short and soft, where I
slept sounder than ever I remember to have done in my life, and,
as I reckoned, about nine hours; for when I awaked, it was just
daylight. I attempted to rise, but was not able to stir: for as
I happened to lie on my back, I found my arms and legs were
strongly fastened on each side to the ground; and my hair, which
was long and thick, tied down in the same manner.
"I could only look upwards, the sun began to grow hot, and the
light offended my eyes. I heard a confused noise about me, but
in the posture I lay, could see nothing except the sky. In a
little time I felt something alive moving on my left leg, which
advancing gently forward over my breast, came almost up to my
chin; when bending my eyes downwards as much as I could, I
perceived it to be a human creature not six inches high, with a
bow and arrow in his hands, and a quiver at his back.
"In the meantime, I felt at least fifty more of the same kind (as
I conjectured) following the first. I was in the utmost
astonishment, and roared so loud, that they all ran back in a
fright; and some of them, as I was afterwards told, were hurt
with the falls they got by leaping from my sides upon the ground.
However, they soon returned, and one of them, who ventured so far
as to get a full sight of my face, lifting up his hands and eyes
by way of admiration, cried out in a shrill, but distinct voice,
Hekinah degul: the others repeated the same words several times,
but then I knew not what they meant.
"I lay all this while, as the reader may believe, in great
uneasiness: at length, struggling to get loose, I had the
fortune to break the strings, and wrench out the pegs that
fastened my left arm to the ground; for, by lifting it up to my
face, I discovered the methods they had taken to bind me, and at
the same time with a violent pull, which game me excessive pain,
I a little loosened the strings that tied down my hair on the
left side, so that I was just able to turn my head about two
inches.
"But the creatures ran off a second time, before I could seize
them; whereupon there was a great shout in a very shrill accent,
and after it ceased, I heard one of them cry aloud Tolgo phonac;
when in an instant I felt above an hundred arrows discharged on
my left hand, which pricked me like so many needles; and besides,
they shot another flight into the air, as we do bombs in Europe,
whereof many, I suppose, fell on my body (though I felt them not)
and some on my face, which I immediately covered with my left
hand.
Gulliver decided that the best thing he could do was to lie still
until night came and then, having his left hand already loose, he
would soon be able to free himself. However, he did not need to
wait so long, for very soon, by orders of a mannikin, who seemed
to have great authority over the others, his head was set free.
The little man then made a long speech, not a word of which
Gulliver understood, but he replied meekly, showing by signs that
he had no wicked intentions against the tiny folk and that he was
also very hungry.
For nearly twenty years longer Swift lived, then sad to say the
life of the man who wrote for us these fascinating tales closed
in gloom without relief. Stella, his life-long friend, died.
That left him forlorn and desolate. Then, as the years passed,
darker and darker gloom settled upon his spirit. Disease crept
over both mind and body, he was tortured by pain, and when at
length the pain left him he sank into torpor. It was not madness
that had come upon him, but a dumb stupor. For more than two
years he lived, but it was a living death. Without memory,
without hope, the great genius had become the voiceless ruin of a
man. But at length a merciful end came. On an October day in
1745 Swift died. He who had torn his own heard with restless
bitterness, who had suffered and caused others to suffer, had at
last found rest.
BOOKS TO READ
NOTE:--These two last are both the same text and are illustrated
by A. Rackham. It is the edition in Temple Classics for Young
People that is recommended, not that in the Temple Classics.
*Thackeray.
Joseph Addison was the son of a Dean. He was born in 1672 in the
quaint little thatched parsonage of Milston, a Wiltshire village,
not far from that strange monument of ancient days, Stonehenge.
When he was old enough Joseph was sent first to schools near his
home, and then a little later to the famous Charterhouse in
London. Of his schooldays we know little, but we can guess, for
one story that has come down to us, that he was a shy, nervous
boy. It is said that once, having done something a little wrong,
he was so afraid of what punishment might follow that he ran
away. He hid in a wood, sleeping in a hollow tree and feeding on
wild berries until he was found and taken home to his parents.
These were the days of the War of the Spanish Succession and of
the brilliant victories of Marlborough of which you have read in
the history of the time of Anne. Blenheim had been fought. All
England was ringing with the praises of the great General in
prose and verse. But the verse was poor, and it seemed to those
in power that this great victory ought to be celebrated more
worthily, so the Lord Treasurer looked about him for some one who
could sing of it in fitting fashion. The right person, however,
seemed hard to find, and the laureate of the day, an honest
gentleman named Nahum Tate, who could hardly be called a poet,
was quite unable for the task. To help the Lord Treasurer out of
his difficulty one of the great men who had already befriended
Addison suggested him as a suitable writer. And so one morning
Addison was surprised in his little garret by a visit from no
less a person than the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
A shy boy at school, Addison had grown into a shy, retiring man,
and no doubt he was not a little taken aback at a visit from so
great a personage. The Chancellor, however, soon put him at his
ease, told him what he had come about, and begged him to
undertake the work. "In short, the Chancellor said so many
obliging things, and in so graceful a manner, as gave Mr. Addison
the utmost spirit and encouragement to begin that poem, which he
afterwards published and entitled The Campaign."*
The poem was a great success, and besides being paid for the
work, Addison received a Government post, so once more life ran
smoothly for him. He had now both money and leisure. His
Government duties left him time to write, and in the next few
years he published a delightful book of his travels, and an
opera.
Shy, humorous, courteous, Addison steadily grew popular.
Everything went well with him. "If he had a mind to be chosen
king he would hardly be refused," said Swift. He, however, only
became a member of Parliament. But he was too shy ever to make a
speech, and presently he went to Ireland as Secretary of State.
Swift and Addison already knew each other, and Addison had sent a
copy of his travels to Swift as "to the most agreeable companion,
the truest friend, and the greatest genius of his age." Now in
Ireland they saw much of each other, and although they were, as
Swift himself says, as different as black and white, they became
fast friends. And even later, in those days of bitter party
feeling, when Swift left his own side and became a Tory, though
their friendship cooled, they never became enemies. Swift's
bitter pen was never turned against his old friend. Addison with
all his humor and his satire never attacked any man personally,
so their relations continued friendly and courteous to the end.
You have heard that, after the Restoration, many of the books
that were written, and plays that were acted, were coarse and
wicked, and the people who read these books and watched these
plays led coarse and wicked lives. And now a rollicking soldier,
noisy, good-hearted Dick Steele, "a rake among scholars, and a
scholar among rakes"* made up his mind to try to make things
better and give people something sweet and clean to read daily.
The Tatler, especially after Addison joined with Steele in
producing it, was a great success. But, as time went on,
although it continued to be a newspaper, gradually more room was
given to fiction than to fact, and to essays on all manner of
subjects than to the news of the day. For Addison is among the
greatest of our essayists. But although these essays were often
meant to teach something, neither Steele nor Addison are always
trying to be moral or enforce a lesson. At times the papers
fairly bubble with fun. One of the best humorous articles in the
Tatler is one in which Addison gives a pretended newly found
story by our friend Sir John Mandeville. It is perhaps as
delightful a lying tale as any that "learned and worthy knight"
ever invented. Here is a part of it:--
*Macaulay.
"It was now very early in the morning, and yet, to my surprise, I
heard somebody say, 'Sir John, it is midnight, and time for the
ship's crew to go to bed.' This I knew to be the pilot's voice,
and upon recollecting myself I concluded that he had spoken these
words to me some days before, though I could not hear them before
the present thaw. My reader will easily imagine how the whole
crew was amazed to hear every man talking, and seeing no man
opening his mouth."
When the confusion of voices was pretty well over Sir John
proposed a visit to the Dutch cabin, and so they set out. "At
about half a mile's distance from our cabin, we heard the
groanings of a bear, which at first startled us. But upon
inquiry we were informed by some of our company, that he was
dead, and now lay in salt, having been killed upon that very spot
about a fortnight before, in the time of the frost."
Having reached the Dutch cabin the company was almost stunned by
the confusion of sounds, and could not make out a word for about
half an hour. This, Sir John thinks, was because the Dutch
language being so much harsher than ours it "wanted more time
than ours to melt and become audible."
Next they visited the French cabin and here Sir John says, "I was
convinced of an error into which I had before fallen. For I had
fancied, that for the freezing of the sound, it was necessary for
it to be wrapped up, and, as it were, preserved in breath. But I
found my mistake, when I heard the sound of a kit playing a
minuet over our heads."
The kit was a small violin to the sound of which the Frenchmen
had danced to amuse themselves while they were deaf or dumb. How
it was that the kit could be heard during the frost and yet still
be heard in the thaw we are not told. Sir John gave very good
reasons, says Addison, but as they are somewhat long "I pass over
them in silence."*
*Tatler, 254.
Addison and Steele carried on the Tatler for two years, then it
was stopped to make way for a far more famous paper called the
Spectator. But meanwhile the Whigs fell from power and Addison
lost his Government post. In twelve months, he said to a friend,
he lost a place worth two thousand pounds a year, an estate in
the Indies, and, worst of all, his lady-love. Who the lady-love
was is not known, but doubtless she was some great lady ready
enough to marry a Secretary of State, but not a poor scribbler.
As Addison had now no Government post, it left him all the more
time for writing, and his essays in the Spectator are what we
chiefly remember him by.
The Spectator was still further from the ordinary newspaper than
the Tatler. It was more perhaps what our modern magazines are
meant to be, but, instead of being published once a week or once
a month, it was published every morning.
*Spectator, 101.
After Mr. Spectator, the chief member of the Club was Sir Roger
de Coverley. "His great-grandfather was inventor of that famous
country dance which is called after him. All who know that shire
(in which he lives), are very well acquainted with the parts and
merits of Sir Roger. He is a gentleman that is very singular in
his behaviour, but his singularities proceed from his good sense,
and are contradictions to the manners of the world, only as he
thinks the world is in the wrong." He was careless of fashion in
dress, and wore a coat and doublet which, he used laughingly to
say, had been in and out twelve times since he first wore it.
"He is now in his fifty-sixth year, cheerful, gay, and hearty;
keeps a good house both in town and country; a great lover of
mankind; but there is such a mirthful cast in his behaviour, that
he is rather beloved than esteemed. His tenants grow rich, his
servants look satisfied. All the young women profess love to him
and the young men are glad of his company. When he comes into a
house he calls the servants by their names, and talks all the way
upstairs to a visit."
Next came a lawyer of the Inner Temple, who had become a lawyer
not because he wanted to be one, but because he wanted to please
his old father. He had been sent to London to study the laws of
the land, but he liked much better to study those of the stage.
"He is an excellent critic, and the time of the play is his hour
of business. Exactly at five he passes through New Inn, crosses
through Russel Court, and takes a turn at Wills' till the play
begins. He has his shoes rubbed and his periwig powdered at the
barber's as you go into the Rose."
*Spectator, 105.
This setting forth of the characters in the story will remind you
a little perhaps of Chaucer in his Prologue to the Canterbury
Tales. As he there gives us a clear picture of England in the
time of Edward III, so Addison gives us a clear picture of
England in the time of Anne. And although the essays are in the
main unconnected, the slight story of these characters runs
through them, weaving them into a whole. You may pick up a
volume of the Spectator and read an essay here or there at will
with enjoyment, or you may read the whole six hundred one after
the other and find in them a slight but interesting story.
You know that the books many of your grown-up friends read most
are called novels. But in the days when Joseph Addison and
Richard Steele wrote the Spectator, there were no novels. Even
Defoe's stories had not yet appeared, and it was therefore a new
delight for our forefathers to have the adventures of the
Spectator Club each day with their morning cup of tea or
chocolate. "Mr. Spectator," writes one lady, "your paper is part
of my tea equipage, and my servant knows my humour so well, that
calling for my breakfast this morning (it being past my usual
hour) she answered, the Spectator was not yet come in, but that
the tea-kettle boiled, and she expected it every moment."
Thus the Spectator had then become part of everyday life just as
our morning newspapers have now, and there must have been many
regrets among the readers when one member of the supposed Club
died, another married and settled down, and so on until at length
the Club was entirely dispersed and the Spectator ceased to
appear. It may interest you to know that the paper we now call
the Spectator was not begun until more than a hundred years after
its great namesake ceased to appear, the first number being
published in 1828.
But although Cato is not really great, the writer was perhaps the
most popular man of his day, and so his tragedy was a tremendous
success. With Cato Addison reached the highest point of his fame
as an author in his own day, but now we remember him much more as
a writer of delightful essays, and as the creator or at least the
perfecter of Sir Roger, for to Steele is due the first invention
of the worthy knight.
But whether Addison was happy in his married life or not, one
sorrow he did have. Between his old friend, Dick Steele, and
himself a coldness grew up. They disagreed over politics.
Steele thought himself ill-used by his party. His impatient,
impetuous temper was hurt at the cool balance of his friend's,
and so they quarreled. "I ask no favour of Mr. Secretary
Addison," writes Steele angrily. During life the quarrel was
never made up, but after Addison died Steele spoke of his friend
in his old generous manner. Under his new honors and labours
Addison's health soon gave way. He suffered much from asthma,
and in 1718 gave up his Government post. A little more than a
year later he died.
So our great essayist was laid to rest, but it was not until many
years had come and gone that a statue in his honor was placed in
the Poets' Corner. This, says Lord Macaulay, himself a great
writer, was "a mark of national respect due to the unsullied
statesman, to the accomplished scholar, to the master of pure
English eloquence, to the consummate painter of life and manners.
It was due, above all, to the great satirist, who alone knew how
to use ridicule without abusing it, who, without inflicting a
wound, effected a great social reform, and who reconciled wit
with virtue, after a long and disastrous separation, during which
wit had been lead astray by profligacy, and virtue by
fanaticism."
BOOKS TO READ
He was born, you know, in Dublin in 1671, and early lost his
father. About this he tells us himself in one of the Tatlers:
"The first sense of sorrow I ever knew was upon the death of my
father, at which time I was not quite five years of age. But was
rather amazed at what all the house meant, than possessed with a
real understanding, why nobody was willing to play with me. I
remember I went into the room where his body lay, and my mother
sat weeping alone by it. I had my battledore in my hand, and
fell abeating the coffin, and calling 'Papa,' for, I know not
how, I had some light idea that he was locked up there. My
mother catched me in her arms, and, transported beyond all
patience of the silent grief she was before in, she almost
smothered me in her embrace, and told me, in a flood of tears,
Pap could not hear me, and would play with me no more, for they
were going to put him under ground, whence he could never come to
us again."*
*Tatler, 181.
Steele's sad, beautiful mother died soon after her husband, and
little Dick was left more lonely than ever. His uncle took
charge of him, and sent him to Charterhouse, where he met
Addison. From there he went to Oxford, but left without taking a
degree. "A drum passing by," he says, "being a lover of music, I
listed myself for a soldier."* "He mounted a war horse, with a
great sword in his hand, and planted himself behind King William
the Third against Lewis the Fourteenth." But he says when he
cocked his hat, and put on a broad sword, jack boots, and
shoulder belt, he did not know his own powers as a writer, he did
not know then that he should ever be able to "demolish a
fortified town with a goosequill."** So Steele became a
"wretched common trooper," or, to put it more politely, a
gentleman volunteer. But he was not long in becoming an ensign,
and about five years later he got his commission as captain.
*Tatler, 89.
**Theatre, 11.
In those days the life of a soldier was wild and rough. Drinking
and swearing were perhaps the least among the follies and
wickedness they were given to, and Dick Steele was as ready as
any other to join in all the wildness going. But in spite of his
faults and failings his heart was kind and tender. He had no
love of wickedness though he could not resist temptation. So the
dashing soldier astonished his companions by publishing a little
book called the Christian Hero. It was a little book written to
show that no man could be truly great who was not religious. He
wrote it at odd minutes when his day's work was over, when his
mind had time "in the silent watch of the night to run over the
busy dream of the day." He wrote it at first for his own use,
"to make him ashamed of understanding and seeming to feel what
was virtuous and yet living so quite contrary a life."
Afterwards he resolved to publish it for the good of others.
But among Steele's gay companions the book had little effect
except to make them laugh at him and draw comparisons between the
lightness of his words and actions, and the seriousness of the
ideas set forth in his Christian Hero. He found himself slighted
instead of encouraged, and "from being thought no undelightful
companion, was soon reckoned a disagreeable fellow."* So he took
to writing plays, for "nothing can make the town so fond of a man
as a successful play."
Steele wrote a great many letters to his second wife, both before
and after his marriage. She kept them all, and from them we can
learn a good deal of this warm-hearted, week-willed, harum-scarum
husband. She is "Dearest Creature," "Dear Wife," "Dear Prue"
(her name, by the way, was Mary), and sometimes "Ruler,"
"Absolute Governess," and he "Your devoted obedient Husband,"
"Your faithful, tender Husband." Many of the letters are about
money troubles. We gather from them that Dick Steele loved his
wife, but as he was a gay and careless spendthrift and she was a
proud beauty, a "scornful lady," for neither of them was life
always easy.
It was about two years after this second marriage that Steele
suddenly began the Tatler. He did not write under his own name,
but under that of Isaac Bickerstaff, a name which Swift had made
use of in writing one of his satires. As has been said, the
genius of Steele has been overshadowed by that of Addison, for
Steele had such a whole-hearted admiration for his friend that he
was ready to give him all the praise. And yet it is nearly
always to Steele that we owe the ideas which were later worked
out and perfected by Addison.
"This day I was led in by a pretty girl, that we all thought must
have forgot me, for the family has been out of town these two
years. Her knowing me again was a mighty subject with us, and
took up our discourse at the first entrance. After which they
began to rally me upon a thousand little stories they heard in
the country about my marriage to one of my neighbor's daughters.
Upon which the gentleman, my friend, said 'Nay, if Mr.
Bickerstaff marries a child of any of his old companions, I hope
mine shall have the preference. There's Mistress Mary is now
sixteen, and would make him as fine a widow as the best of
them.'"
After dinner the mother and children leave the two friends
together. The father speaks of his love for his wife, and his
fears for her health.
"'Ah, you little understand, you that have lived a bachelor, how
great a pleasure there is in being really beloved. Her face is
to me more beautiful than when I first saw it. In her
examination of her household affairs she show a certain
fearfulness to find a fault, which makes her servants obey her
like children, and the meanest we have has an ingenuous shame for
an offence, not always to be seen in children in other families.
I speak freely to you, my old friend. Ever since her sickness,
things that gave me the quickest joy before, turn now to a
certain anxiety. As the children play in the next room, I know
the poor things by their steps, and am considering what they must
do, should they lose their mother in their tender years. The
pleasure I used to take in telling my boy stories of the battles,
and asking my girl questions about the disposal of her baby, and
the gossiping of it, is turned into inward reflection and
melancholy.' The poor gentleman would have gone on much longer
with his sad forebodings, but his wife returning, and seeing by
his grave face what he had been talking about, said, with a
smile, 'Mr. Bickerstaff, don't believe a word of what he tells
you. I shall still live to have you for my second, as I have
often promised you, unless he takes more care of himself than he
has done since his coming to town. You must know, he tells me,
that he finds London is a much more healthy place than the
country, for he sees several of his old acquaintance and school-
fellows are here, young fellows with fair, full-bottomed
periwigs. I could scarce keep him this morning from going out
open-breasted.'" And so they sat and chatted pleasantly until,
"on a sudden, we were alarmed with the noise of a drum, and
immediately entered my little godson to give me a point of war.*
His mother, between laughing and chiding, would have put him out
of the room, but I would not part with him so. I found, upon
conversation with him, though he was a little noisy in his mirth,
that the child had excellent parts, and was a great master of all
the learning on the other side of eight years old. I perceived
him to be a very great historian in Aesop's Fables; but he frankly
declared to me his mind, that he did not delight in that
learning, because he did not believe they were true. For which
reason I found he had very much turned his studies, for about a
twelve-month past, into the lives and adventures of Don Bellianis
of Greece, Guy of Warwick, the Seven Champions, and other
historians of that age.
"I could not but observe the satisfaction the father took in the
forwardness of his son, and that these diversions might turn to
some profit, I found the boy had made remarks which might be of
service to him during the course of his whole life. He would
tell you the mismanagements of John Hickathrift, find fault with
the passionate temper of Bevis of Southampton, and loved St.
George for being the champion of England; and by this means had
his thoughts insensibly moulded into the notions of discretion,
virtue, and honour.
"I sat with them till it was very late, sometimes in merry,
sometimes in serious discourse, with this particular pleasure
which gives the only true relish to all conversation, a sense
that every one of us liked each other. I went home considering
the different conditions of a married life and that of a
bachelor. And I must confess it struck me with a secret concern
to reflect that, whenever I go off, I shall leave no traces
behind me. In this pensive mood I returned to my family, that is
to say, to my maid, my dog, and my cat, who only can be the
better or worse for what happens to me."*
*Tatler, 96.
You will be sorry to know that, a few Tatlers further on, the
kind mother of this happy family dies. But Steele was himself so
much touched by the thought of all the misery he was bringing
upon the others by giving such a sad ending to his story, that he
could not go on with the paper, and Addison had to finish it for
him.
The Spectator, you know, succeeded the Tatler, and it was while
writing for the Spectator that Steele took seriously to politics.
He became a member of Parliament and wrote hot political
articles. He and Swift crossed swords more than once, and from
being friends became enemies. But Steele's temper was too hot,
his pen too hasty. The Tories were in power, and he was a Whig,
and he presently found himself expelled from the House of Commons
for "uttering seditious libels." Shut out from politics, Steele
turned once more to essay-writing, and published, one after the
other, several papers of the same style as the Spectator, but
none of them lived long.
Better days, however, were coming. Queen Anne died, and King
George became a king in 1714, the Whigs returned to power, Steele
again received a Government post, again he sat in Parliament, and
a few months later he was knighted, and became Sir Richard
Steele. We cannot follow him through all his projects,
adventures, and writings. He was made one of the commissioners
for the forfeited estates of the Scottish lords who had taken
part in the '15, and upon this business he went several times to
Scotland. The first time he went was in the autumn of 1717. But
before that Lady Steele had gone to Wales to look after her
estates there. While she was there Dick wrote many letters to
her, some of which are full of tenderness for his children. They
show us something too of the happy-go-lucky household in the
absence of the careful mistress. In one he says:--
*In those days there was no blotting-paper, and sand was used to
dry the ink.
"Moll bids me let you know that she fell down just now and did
not hurt herself."
Soon after this Steele set out for Scotland, and although the
business which brought him could not have been welcome to many a
Scottish gentleman, he himself was well received. They forgot
the Whig official in the famous writer. In Edinburgh he was
feasted and feted. "You cannot imagine," wrote Steele, "the
civilities and honours I had done me there. I never lay better,
ate or drank better, or conversed with men of better sense than
there." Poets and authors greeted him in verse, he was "Kind
Richy Spec, the friend to a' distressed," "Dear Spec," and many
stories are told of his doings among these new-found friends. He
paid several later visits to Scotland, but about a year after his
return from this first short visit Steele had a great sorrow.
His wife died. "This is to let you know," he writes to a cousin,
"that my dear and honoured wife departed this life last night."
And now that his children were motherless, Steele, when he was
away from them, wrote to them, always tender, often funny,
letters. It is Betty, the eldest, he addresses, she is "Dear
Child," "My dear Daughter," "My good Girlie." He bids them be
good and grow like their mother. "I have observed that your
sister," he says in one letter, "has for the first time written
the initial or first letters of her name. Tell her I am highly
delighted to see her subscription in such fair letters. And how
many fine things those two letters stand for when she writes
them. M. S. is Milk and Sugar, Mirth and Safety, Music and
Songs, Meat and Sauce, as well as Molly and Spot, and Mary and
Steele." I think the children must have loved their kind father
who wrote such pretty nonsense to them.
So with ups and downs the years passed. However much money
Steele got he never seemed to have any, and in spite of all his
carelessness and jovialness, there is something sad in those last
years of his life. He quarreled with, and then for ever lost his
life-long friend, Joseph Addison. His two sons died, and at
length, broken in health, troubled about money, he went to spend
his last days in Carmarthen in Wales. Here we have a last
pleasant picture of him being carried out on a summer's evening
to watch the country lads and lasses dance. And with his own
hand, paralyzed though it was, he would write an order for a new
gown to be given to the best dancer. And here in Carmarthen, in
1729, he died and was buried in the Church of St. Peter.
BOOKS TO READ
Essays of Richard Steele, selected and edited by L. E. Steele.
Steele Selections from the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian,
edited by Austin Dobson.
Alexander was an only son. He had one step-sister, but she was a
good many years older than he, and he seems never to have had any
child companions or real childhood. He must always have been
delicate, yet as a child his face was "round, plump, pretty, and
of a fresh complexion."* He is said, too, to have been very
sweet tempered, but his father and mother spoilt him not a
little, and when he grew up he lost that sweetness of temper.
Yet, unlike many spoilt children, Pope never forgot the reverence
due to father and mother. He repaid their love with love as
warm, and in their old age he tended and cared for them fondly.
*Spence, Anecdotes.
Pope loved the stories of the Greek and Roman heroes, but he did
not care for the hard work needed to learn to read them in the
original with ease, and contented himself with translations. He
was so fond of these stories that while still a little boy he
made a play from the Iliad which was acted by the boys of one of
his schools.
Very early Pope began to write poetry. He read a great deal, and
two of his favorite poets were Spenser and Dryden. His great
idea was to become a poet also, and in this his father encouraged
him. Although no poet himself he would set his little son to
make verses upon different subjects. "He was pretty difficult in
being pleased," says Pope's mother, "and used often to send him
back to new turn them; 'These are not good rhymes,' he would
say."
Pope saw Dryden only once, even if the story is true; but with
another old poet, a dramatist, he struck up a great friendship.
This poet was named Wycherley, but by the time that Pope came to
know him Wycherley had grown old and feeble, all his best work
was done, and people were perhaps beginning to forget him. So he
was pleased with the admiration of the boy poet fifty years
younger than himself, and glad to accept his help. At first this
flattered Pope's vanity, but after a little he quarreled with his
old friend and left him. This was the first of Pope's literary
quarrels, of which he had many.
Pope's keenest desire was to be a poet, and few poets have rushed
so quickly into fame. He received few of the buffets which young
authors have as a rule to bear. Instead, many a kindly helping
hand was stretched out to him by the great men of the day, for
there was much in this young genius to draw out the pity of
others. He was fragile and sickly. As a full grown man he stood
only four feet six inches high. His body was bent and deformed,
and so frail that he had to be strapped in canvas to give him
some support. His fine face was lined by pain, for he suffered
from racking headaches, and indeed his life was one long disease.
Yet in spite of constant pain this little crooked boy, with his
"little, tender, crazy carcass," as Wycherley called it, wrote
the most astonishing poetry in a style which in his own day was
considered the finest that could be written.
It is not surprising then that his poems were greeted with kindly
wonder, mixed it may be with a little envy. Unhappily Pope saw
only the envy and overlooked the kindliness. Perhaps it was that
his crooked little body had warped the great mind it held, but
certain it is, as Pope grew to manhood his thirst for praise and
glory increased, and with it his distrust and envy of others.
And many of the ways he took to add to his own fame, and take
away from that of others, were mean and tortuous to the last
degree. Deceit and crooked ways seemed necessary to him. It has
been said that he hardly drank tea without a stratagem, and that
he played the politician about cabbages and turnips.*
*Lady Bolingbroke.
He begged his own letters back from the friends to whom they were
written. He altered them, changed the dates, and published them.
Then he raised a great outcry pretending that they had been
stolen from him and published without his knowledge. Such ways
led to quarrels and strife while he was alive, and since his
death they have puzzled every one who has tried to write about
him. All his life through he was hardly ever without a literary
quarrel of some sort, some of his poems indeed being called forth
merely by these quarrels.
But though many of Pope's poems led to quarrels, and some were
written with the desire to provoke them, one of his most famous
poems was, on the other hand, written to bring peace between two
angry families. This poem is called the Rape of the Lock--rape
meaning theft, and the lock not the lock of a door, but a lock of
hair.
Addison called it "a delicious little thing" and the very salt of
wit.
*Hazlitt.
The "Adventurous Baron" next appears upon the scene. He, greatly
admiring Belinda's shining locks, longs to possess one, and makes
up his mind that he will. And, as the painted vessel glided down
the Thames, Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay, only Ariel
alone was sad and disturbed, for he felt some evil, he knew not
what, was hanging over his mistress. So he gathered all his
company and bade them watch more warily than before over their
charge. Some must guard the watch, some the fan, "And thou
Crispissa, tend her fav'rite lock," he says. And woe betide that
sprite who shall be careless or neglectful!
*Slipped through.
The day went on, Belinda sat down to play cards. After the game
coffee was brought, and "while frequent cups prolong the rich
repast," Belinda unthinkingly gave the Baron a pair of scissors.
Then indeed the hour of fate struck. The Baron standing behind
Belinda found the temptation too great. He opened the scissors
and drew near--
But at last "the fatal engine" closed upon the lock. Even to the
last, one wretched sylph struggling to save the lock clung to it.
It was in vain, "Fate urged the shears, and cut the sylph in
twain." Then, while Belinda cried aloud in anger, the Baron
shouted in triumph and rejoiced over his spoil.
Sir Plume, not famous for brains, put on a very bold, determined
air, and fiercely attacked the Baron--"My Lord," he cried, "why,
what! you must return the lock! You must be civil. Plague on
't! 'tis past a jest--nay prithee, give her the hair." And as he
spoke he tapped his snuff-box daintily.
Thus, says the poet, Belinda has no longer need to mourn her lost
lock, for it will be famous to the end of time as a bright star
among the stars--
When Pope first published this poem there was nothing about
fairies in it. Afterwards he thought of the fairies, but Addison
advised him not to alter the poem, as it was so delightful as it
was. Pope, however, did not take the advice, but added the fairy
part, thereby greatly improving the poem. This caused a quarrel
with Addison, for Pope thought he had given him bad advice
through jealousy. A little later this quarrel was made much
worse. Pope translated and published a version of the Iliad, and
at the same time a friend of Addison did so too. This made Pope
bitterly angry, for he believed that the translation was
Addison's own and that he had published it to injure the sale of
his. From this you see how easily Pope's anger and jealousy were
aroused, and will not wonder that his life was a long record of
quarrels.
Pope need not have been jealous of Addison's friend, for his own
translation of Homer was a great success, and people soon forgot
the other. He translated not only the Iliad, but with the help
of two lesser poets the Odyssey also. Both poems were done in
the fashionable heroic couplet, and Pope made so much money by
them that he was able to live in comfort ever after. And it is
interesting to remember that Pope was the first poet who was able
to live in comfort entirely on what he made by his writing.
It has been said that to write in the heroic couplet "is an art
as mechanical as that of mending a kettle or shoeing a horse, and
may be learned by any human being who has sense enough to learn
anything."* And although this is not all true, it is so far true
that it is almost impossible to tell which books of the Odyssey
were written by Pope, and which by the men who helped him. But,
taken as a whole, the Odyssey is not so good as the Iliad.
Scholars tell us that in neither the one nor the other is the
feeling of the original poetry kept. Pope did not know enough
Greek to enter into the spirit of it, and he worked mostly from
translation. Even had he been able to enter into the true spirit
he would have found it hard to keep that spirit in his
translation, using as he did the artificial heroic couplet. For
Homer's poetry is not artificial, but simple and natural like our
own early poetry. "A pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but you must not
call it Homer," said a friend** when he read it, and his judgment
is still for the most part the judgment of to-day.
*Macaulay.
**Bentley.
It was after he had finished the Odyssey that Pope wrote his most
famous satire, called the Dunciad. In this he insulted and held
up to ridicule all stupid or dull authors, all dunces, and all
those whom he considered his enemies. It is very clever, but a
poem full of malice and hatred does not make very pleasant
reading. For most of us, too, the interest it had has vanished,
as many of the people at whom Pope levied his malice are
forgotten, or only remembered because he made them famous by
adding their names to his roll of dunces. But in Pope's own day
the Dunciad called forth cries of anger and revenge from the
victims, and involved the author in still more quarrels.
Pope wrote many more poems, the chief being the Essay on
Criticism and the Essay on Man. But his translations of Homer
and the Rape of the Lock are those you will like best in the
meantime. As a whole Pope is perhaps not much read now, yet many
of his lines have become household words, and when you come to
read him you will be surprised to find how many familiar
quotations are taken from his poems. Perhaps no one of our poets
except Shakespeare is more quoted. And yet he seldom says
anything which touches the heart. When we enjoy his poetry we
enjoy it with the brain. It gives us pleasure rather as the
glitter of a diamond than as the perfume of a rose.
BOOKS TO READ
At sixteen Samuel left school, and for two years idled about his
father's shop, reading everything that came in his way. He
devoured books. He did not read them carefully, but quickly,
tearing the heart out of them. He cared for nothing else but
reading, and once when his father was ill and unable to attend to
his bookstall, he asked his son to do it for him. Samuel
refused. But the memory of his disobedience and unkindliness
stayed with him, and more than fifty years after, as an old and
worn man, he stood bare-headed in the wind and rain for an hour
in the market-place, upon the spot where his father's stall had
stood. This he did as a penance for that one act of
disobedience.
*Boswell.
And this queer genius fell in love with a widow lady more than
twenty years older than himself. She, we are told, was coarse,
fat, and unlovely, but she was not without brains, for she saw
beneath the strange outside of her young lover. "This is the
most sensible man that I ever saw in my life," she said, after
talking with him. So this strange couple married. "Sir," said
Johnson afterwards, "It was a love-marriage on both sides." And
there can be no doubt that Samuel loved his wife devotedly while
she lived, and treasured her memory tenderly after her death.
After struggling with his school for more than a year, Johnson
resolved to give it up and go to London, there to seek his
fortune. Leaving his wife at Lichfield, he set off with his
friend and pupil David Garrick, as he afterwards said, "With
twopence halfpenny in my pocket, and thou, Davy, with three
halfpence in thine."
The days of the later Stuarts and the first of the Georges were
the great days of patronage. When a writer of genius appeared,
noblemen and others, who were powerful and wealthy, were eager to
become his patron, and have his books dedicated to them. So
although the dunces among writers remained terribly poor, almost
every man of genius was sure of a comfortable life. But although
he gained this by his writing, it was not because the people
liked his books, but because one man liked them or was eager to
have his name upon them, and therefore became his patron. The
patron, then, either himself helped his pet writer, or got for
him some government employment. After a time this fashion
ceased, and instead of taking his book to a patron, a writer took
it to a bookseller, and sold it to him for as much money as he
could. And so began the modern way of publishing books.
*Carlyle.
Johnson had brought with him to London a tragedy more than half
written, but when he took it to the booksellers they showed no
eagerness to publish it, or indeed anything else that he might
write. Looking at him they saw no genius, but only a huge and
uncouth country youth. One bookseller, seeing his great body,
advised him rather to try his luck as a porter than as a writer.
But, in spite of rebuffs and disappointments, Johnson would not
give in. When he had money enough he lived in mean lodgings,
when he had none, hungry, ragged, and cold, he roamed about the
streets, making friends with other strange, forlorn men of
genius, and sharing their miseries.
The misery of this time was such that long years after Johnson
burst into tears at the memory of it. But it did not conquer
him, he conquered it. He got work to do at last, and became one
of the first newspaper reporters.
Among other things he wrote one or two poems and the life of
Richard Savage, a strange, wild genius with whom he had wandered
the streets in the days of his worst poverty. The tragedy called
Irene which Johnson had brought with him to London was at length
after twelve years produced by Garrick, who had by that time
become a famous actor. Johnson had, however, no dramatic genius.
"When Johnson writes tragedy," said Garrick, "'declamation roars
and passion sleeps':* when Shakespeare wrote, he dipped the pen
in his own heart." Garrick did what he could with the play, but
it was a failure, and although Johnson continued to believe that
it was good, he wrote no more tragedies.
Johnson's play was a failure, but by that time he had begun the
great work which was to name him and single him out from the rest
of the world as Dictionary Johnson. To make a complete
dictionary of a language is a tremendous work. Johnson thought
that it would take three years. It took, instead, seven.
But during these seven years he also wrote other things and
steadily added to his fame. He started a paper after the model
of the Spectator, called the Rambler. This paper was continued
for about two years, Johnson writing all but five of the essays.
After that he wrote many essays in a paper called the Adventurer,
and, later still, for two years he wrote for another paper a
series of articles called the Idler.
In the days when Johnson wrote, this style was greatly admired,
but now we have come back to thinking that the simplest words are
best, or, at least, that we must suit our words to our subject.
And if we tell a fairy tale (as Johnson once did) we must not use
words of five syllables when words of two will better give the
feeling of the tale. Yet there are many pleasant half-hours to
be spent in dipping here and there into the volumes of the
Rambler or the Idler. I will give you in the next chapter, as a
specimen of Johnson's prose, part of one of the essays from the
Idler. It is the story of a man who sets forth upon a very
ordinary journey and who makes as great a tale of it as he had
been upon a voyage of discovery in some untraveled land.
"I SUPPED three nights ago with my friend Will Marvel. His
affairs obliged him lately to take a journey into Devonshire,
from which he has just returned. He knows me to be a very
patient hearer, and was glad of my company, as it gave him an
opportunity of disburdening himself, by a minute relation of the
casualties of his expedition.
"Will is not one of those who go out and return with nothing to
tell. He has a story of his travels, which will strike a home-
bred citizen with horror, and has in ten days suffered so often
the extremes of terror and joy, that he is in doubt whether he
shall ever again expose either his body or his mind to such
danger and fatigue.
"When he left London the morning was bright, and a fair day was
promised. But Will is born to struggle with difficulties. That
happened to him, which has sometimes, perhaps, happened to
others. Before he had gone more than ten miles, it began to
rain. What course was to be taken? His soul disdained to turn
back. He did what the King of Prussia might have done; he
flapped his hat, buttoned up his cape, and went forwards,
fortifying his mind by the stoical consolation, that whatever is
violent will be short."
So, with such adventures, the first day passes, and reaching his
inn, after a good supper, Will Marvel goes to bed and sleeps
soundly. But during the night he is wakened "by a shower beating
against his windows with such violence as to threaten the
dissolution of nature." Thus he knows that the next day will
have its troubles. "He joined himself, however, to a company
that was travelling the same way, and came safely to the place of
dinner, though every step of his horse dashed the mud in the
air."
"Few that lie warm in their beds think what others undergo, who
have, perhaps, been as tenderly educated, and have as acute
sensations as themselves. My friend was now to lodge the second
night almost fifty miles from home, in a house which he never had
seen before, among people to whom he was totally a stranger, not
knowing whether the next man he should meet would prove good or
bad; but seeing an inn of a good appearance, he rode resolutely
into the yard; and knowing that respect is often paid in
proportion as it is claimed, delivered his injunctions to the
ostler with spirit, and, entering the house, called vigorously
about him.
"On the third day up rose the sun and Mr. Marvel. His troubles
and dangers were now such as he wishes no other man ever to
encounter." The way was lonely, often for two miles together he
met not a single soul with whom he could speak, and, looking at
the bleak fields and naked trees, he wished himself safe home
again. His only consolation was that he suffered these terrors
of the way alone. Had, for instance, his friend the "Idler" been
there he could have done nothing but lie down and die.
"At last the sun set and all the horrors of darkness came upon
him. . . . Yet he went forward along a path which he could no
longer see, sometimes rushing suddenly into water, and sometimes
encumbered with stiff clay, ignorant whither he was going, and
uncertain whether his next step might not be the last.
"The rest of his journey was nothing but danger. He climbed and
descended precipices on which vulgar mortals tremble to look; he
passed marshes like the Serbonian bog,* where armies whole have
sunk; he forded rivers where the current roared like the Egre or
the Severn; or ventured himself on bridges that trembled under
him, from which he looked down on foaming whirlpools, or dreadful
abysses; he wandered over houseless heaths, amidst all the rage
of the elements, with the snow driving in his face, and the
tempest howling in his ears.
I am afraid you will find a good many "too big" words in that.
But if I changed them to others more simple you would get no idea
of the way in which Johnson wrote, and I hope those you do not
understand you will look up in the dictionary. It will not be
Johnson's own dictionary, however, for that has grown old-
fashioned, and its place has been taken by later ones. For some
of Johnson's meanings were not correct, and when these mistakes
were pointed out to him he was not in the least ashamed. Once a
lady asked him how he came to say that the pastern was the knee
of a horse, and he calmly replied, "Ignorance, madam, pure
ignorance." "Dictionaries are like watches," he said, "the worst
is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite
true."
With some words, instead of giving the original meaning, he gave
a personal meaning, that is he allowed his own sense of humor,
feelings or politics, to color the meaning. For instance, he
disliked the Scots, so for the meaning of Oats he gave, "A grain
which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland
supports the people." He disliked the Excise duty, so he called
it "A hateful tax levied by wretches hired by those to whom
excise is paid." For this last meaning he came very near being
punished for libel.
The years went on, and Johnson saw nothing of his patron. When,
however, the dictionary was nearly done, Lord Chesterfield let it
be known that he would be pleased to have it dedicated to him.
But Johnson would have none of it. He wrote a letter which was
the "Blast of Doom, proclaiming into the ear of Lord
Chesterfield, and, through him, of the listening world, that
patronage would be no more!"*
*Carlyle.
"Is not a patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man
struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached the
ground cumbers him with help? The notice which you have been
pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind;
but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy
it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known,
and do not want it."
*A. Lang.
Johnson had always spent much of his time in taverns, and was now
more than ever free to do so. For while he was still working at
his dictionary he suffered a great grief in the death of his
wife. He had loved her truly and never ceased to mourn her loss.
But though he had lost his wife, he did not remain solitary in
his home, for he opened his doors to a queer collection of waifs
and strays--three women and a man, upon whom he took pity because
no one else would. They were ungrateful and undeserving, and
quarreled constantly among themselves, so that his home could
have been no peaceful spot. "Williams hates everybody," he
writes; "Levett hates Desmoulins and does not love Williams;
Desmoulins hates them both; Poll loves none of them." It does
not sound peaceful or happy.
Some years after the death of Johnson's wife his mother died at
the age of ninety, and although he had not been with her for many
years, that too was a grief. The poor lady had had very little
to live on, and she left some debts. Johnson himself was still
struggling with poverty. He had no money, so to pay his mother's
few debts, and also the expenses of her funeral, he sat down to
write a story. In a week he had finished Rasselas, Prince of
Abyssinia.
But a year or two after Rasselas was written, a great change came
in Johnson's life, which gave him comfort and security for the
rest of his days. George III had come to the throne. He thought
that he would like to do something for literature, and offered
Johnson a pension of three hundred pounds a year.
And when Johnson was dead Boswell wrote his life. It is one of
the most wonderful lives ever written--perhaps the most
wonderful. And when we have read it we seem to know Johnson as
well as if we had lived with him. We see and know him in all his
greatness and all his littleness, in all his weakness and all his
might.
It was with Boswell that Johnson made his most famous journey,
his tour to Scotland. For, like his namesake, Ben, he too
visited Scotland. But he traveled in a more comfortable manner,
and his journey was a much longer one, for he went as far as the
Hebrides. It was a wonderful expedition for a man of sixty-four,
especially in those days when there were no trains and little
ease in the way of traveling, and when much of it had to be done
on rough ponies or in open boats.
Boswell after a time joined the famous club at which Johnson and
his friends met together and talked. Johnson loved to argue, and
he made a point of always getting the best of an argument. If he
could not do so by reason, he simply roared his opponent down and
silenced him by sheer rudeness. "There is no arguing with
Johnson," said one of his friends, Oliver Goldsmith, "for when
his pistol misses fire he knocks you down with the butt end of
it." And perhaps Goldy, as Johnson called him, had to suffer
more rudeness from him than any of his friends to save Bozzy.
Yet the three were often to be found together, and it was
Goldsmith who said of Johnson, "No man alive has a more tender
heart. He has nothing of the bear but his skin."
And indeed in Johnson's outward appearance there was much of the
bear. He was a sloven in dress. His clothes were shabby and
thrown on anyhow. "I have no passion for clean linen," he said
himself. At table he made strange noises and ate greedily, yet
in spite of all that, added to his noted temper and rude manners,
men loved him and sought his company more than that of any other
writer of his day, for "within that shaggy exterior of his there
beat a heart warm as a mother's, soft as a little child's."*
*Carlyle.
BOOKS TO READ
The first real novel in the modern sense was written by Samuel
Richardson, and published in 1740. Quickly after that there
arose several other novel writers whose books became famous.
These still stand high in the literature of our land, but as
nothing in them would be interesting to you for many years to
come we need not trouble about them now. There is, however, one
novel of this early time which I feel sure you would like, and of
it and its author I shall tell you something. The book I mean is
called The Vicar of Wakefield, and it was written by Oliver
Goldsmith.
Two years after Oliver was born his father moved to Lissoy,
another and better parish. Little Oliver began to learn very
early, but his first teacher thought him stupid: "Never was
there such a dull boy," she said. She managed, however, to teach
him the alphabet, and at six he went to the village school of
Lissoy. Paddy Byrne, the master there, was an old soldier. He
had fought under Marlborough, he had wandered the world seeking
and finding adventures. His head was full of tales of wild
exploits, of battles, of ghosts and fairies too, for he was an
Irishman and knew and loved the Celtic lore. Besides all this he
wrote poetry.
For three years Oliver remained under the care of his vagabond
teacher. He looked up to him with a kind of awed wonder, and
many years afterwards he drew a picture of him in his poem The
Deserted Village.
Goldsmith was idle and wild, and at the end of two years he
quarreled with his tutor, sold his books, and ran away to Cork.
He meant to go on board a ship, and sail away for ever from a
land where he had been so unhappy. But he had little money, and
what he had was soon spent, and at last, almost starving, having
lived for three days on a shilling, he turned homewards again.
Peace was made with his tutor, and Goldsmith went back to
college, and stayed there until two years later when he took his
degree.
His father was now dead and it was necessary for Oliver to earn
his own living. All his family wished him to be a clergyman, but
he "did not deem himself good enough for it." However, he
yielded to their persuasions, and presented himself to his
bishop. But the bishop would not ordain him--why is not known,
but it was said that he was offended with Goldsmith for coming to
be ordained dressed in scarlet breeches.
After this failure Oliver tried teaching and became a tutor, but
in a very short time he gave that up. Next his uncle, thinking
that he would make a lawyer of him, gave him 50 pounds and sent
him off to London to study law there. Goldsmith lost the money
in Dublin, and came home penniless. Some time after this a
gentleman remarked that he would make an excellent medical man,
and again his uncle gave him money and sent him off to Edinburgh,
this time as a medical student. So he said his last good-by to
home and Ireland and set out.
In Scotland Goldsmith lived for a year and a half traveling
about, enjoying life, and, it may be, studying. Then, in his
happy-go-lucky way, he decided it would be well to go to Holland
to finish his medical studies there. Off he started with little
money in his pocket, and many debts behind him. After not a few
adventures he arrived at length in Leyden. Here passing a
florist's shop he saw some bulbs which he knew his uncle wanted.
So in he ran to the shop, bought them, and sent them off to
Ireland. The money with which he bought the bulbs was borrowed,
and now he left Leyden to make the tour of Europe burdened
already with debt, with one guinea in his pocket, and one clean
shirt and a flute as his luggage.
*The Traveller.
The novel which thus set Goldsmith free for the moment was the
famous Vicar of Wakefield. "There are an hundred faults in this
thing," says Goldsmith himself, and if we agree with him there we
also agree with him when he goes on to say, "and an hundred
things might be said to prove them beauties. But it is needless.
A book may be amusing with numerous errors, or it may be very
dull without a single absurdity. The hero of this piece unites
in himself the three greatest characters upon earth: he is a
priest, an husbandman, and the father of a family. He is drawn
as ready to teach, and ready to obey: as simple in affluence,
and majestic in adversity." When we have made the acquaintance
of the Vicar we find ourselves the richer for a lifelong friend.
His gentle dignity, his simple faith, his sly and tender humor,
all make us love him.
Of his children he says, "Our eldest son was named George, after
his uncle, who left us ten thousand pounds. Our second child, a
girl, I intended to call, after her aunt, Grissel; but my wife,
who had been reading romances, insisted upon her being called
Olivia. In less than another year we had another daughter, and
now I was determined that Grissel should be her name; but a rich
relation taking a fancy to stand god-mother, the girl was by her
direction called Sophia; so that we had two romantic names in the
family; but I solemnly protest I had no hand in it. Moses was
our next; and, after an interval of twelve years, we had two sons
more." These two youngest boys were called Dick and Bill.
The dear doctor soon settles down to his changed life, but his
wife and her beautiful daughters try hard to be as fine as they
were before, and as grand, if not grander, than their neighbors.
This desire leads to not a few of their adventures. Among other
things they decide to have their portraits painted. This is how
Dr. Primrose tells of it: "My wife and daughters happening to
return a visit to neighbour Flamborough's, found that family had
lately got their pictures drawn by a limner, who travelled the
country, and took likenesses for fifteen shillings a-head. As
this family and ours had long a sort of rivalry in point of
taste, our spirit took the alarm at this stolen march upon us;
and, notwithstanding all I could say, and I said much, it was
resolved that we should have our pictures done too.
"Having therefore engaged the limner (for what could I do?) our
next deliberation was, to show the superiority of our taste in
the attitudes. As for our neighbour's family, there were seven
of them; and they were drawn with seven oranges, a thing quite
out of taste, no variety in life, no composition in the world.
We desired to have something in a higher style, and after many
debates, at length came to a unanimous resolution, of being drawn
together, in one large historical familypiece. This would be
cheaper, since one frame would serve for all, and it would be
infinitely more genteel; for all families of any taste were now
drawn in the same manner.
For the rest of the troubles and adventures of the good Vicar and
his family you must go to the book itself. In the end all comes
right, and we leave the Vicar surrounded by his family with Dick
and Bill sitting on his knee. "I had nothing now this side the
grave to wait for," he says; "all my cares were over; my pleasure
was unspeakable." Even if you do not at first understand all of
this book I think it will repay you to read it, for on almost
every page you will find touches of gentle humor. We feel that
no one but a man of simple childlike heart could have written
such a book, and when we have closed it we feel better and
happier for having read it.
But soon these days of wealth were over; soon Goldsmith's money
was all spent, and once again he had to sit down to grinding
work. He wrote many things, but the next great work he published
was another poem, The Deserted Village.
The poem tells the story of a village which had once been happy
and flourishing, but which is now quite deserted and fallen to
ruins. The village is thought by some people to have been
Lissoy, where Oliver had lived as a boy, but others think this
cannot be, for they say no Irish village was ever so peaceful and
industrious as Goldsmith pictures his village to have been. But
we must remember that the poet had not seen his home since
childhood, and that he looked back upon it through the golden
haze of memory. It is in this poem that we have the picture of
Oliver's old schoolmaster which I have already given you. Here,
too, we have a picture of the kindly village parson who may be
taken both from Oliver's father and from his brother Henry.
Probably he had his brother most in mind, for Henry Goldsmith had
but lately died, "and I loved him better than most other men,"
said the poet sadly in the dedication of this poem--
The last time that Goldsmith returned home from school he made
his journey on horseback. The horse was borrowed or hired, but
he had a guinea in his pocket, and he felt very grown up and
grand. He had to spend one night on the way, and as evening came
on he asked a passing stranger to direct him to the best house,
meaning the best in the neighborhood. The stranger happened to
be the village wag, and seeing the schoolboy swagger, and the
manly airs of sixteen, he, in fun, directed him to the squire's
house. There the boy arrived, handed over his horse with a
lordly air to a groom, marched into the house and ordered supper
and a bottle of wine. In the manner of the times in drinking his
wine he invited his landlord to join him as a real grown-up man
might have done. The squire saw the joke and fell in with it,
and not until next morning did the boy discover his mistake. The
comedy founded on this adventure was a great success, and no
wonder, for it bubbles over with fun and laughter. Some day you
will read the play, perhaps too, you may see it acted, for it is
still sometimes acted. In any case it makes very good reading.
But Goldsmith did not long enjoy the new fame this comedy brought
him. In the spring of 1774, less than a year after it appeared,
the kindly spendthrift author lay dead. He was only forty-five.
BOOK TO READ
*Dinner.
**Companion.
***Drink.
****Measure.
*Carlyle.
The writer of that song was, like Caedmon long ago, a son of the
soil, he, too, was a "heaven-taught ploughman."*
*Henry Mackenzie.
He had a hard struggle to make his farm pay, to feed and clothe
little Robert and his brothers and sisters, who were growing up
fast about him. But, poor though he was, William Burns made up
his mind that his children should be well taught. At six Robert
went daily to school, and when the master was sent away somewhere
else, and the village of Alloway was left without any teacher,
William Burns and four neighbors joined together to pay for one.
But as they could not pay enough to give him a house in which to
live, he used to stay with each family in turn for a few weeks at
a time.
And so the years went on, the family at Mount Oliphant living a
hard and sparing life. For years they never knew what it was to
have meat for dinner, yet when Robert was thirteen his father
managed to send him and Gilbert week about to a school two or
three miles away. He could not send them both together, for he
could neither afford to pay two fees, nor could he spare both
boys at once, as already the children helped with the farm work.
*Whistling sound.
*Stagger.
**To run with outspread arms.
Belyve,* the elder bairns come drapping in,
At service out, amang the farmers roun';
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie** rin
A cannie*** errand to a neebor town:
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,
In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e
Comes hame, perhaps, to show a braw new gown,
Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee,****
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.
*In a little.
**Carefully.
***Not difficult.
****Wages paid in money.
*Asks after.
**Strange things.
***Makes old clothes look almost as good as new.
. . . . . . .
"The cheerfu' supper done,, wi' serious face,
They, round the ingle, form a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,
The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride:
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,
His layart haffets* wearing thin an' bare;
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He wales** a portion with judicious care;
And "Let us worship God!" he says, with solemn air.
When Robert was twenty-two he again left home. This time he went
to the little seaport town of Irvine to learn flax dressing. For
on the farm the father and brothers had begun to grow flax, and
it was thought well that one of them should know how to prepare
it for spinning.
Here Robert got into evil company and trouble. He sinned and
repented and sinned again. We find him writing to his father,
"As for this world, I despair of ever making a figure in it. I
am not formed for the bustle of the busy, nor the flutter of the
gay. I shall never again be capable of entering into such
scenes." Burns knew himself to be a man of faults. The
knowledge of his own weakness, perhaps, made him kindly to other.
In one of his poems he wrote--
The next four years of Burns's life were eventful years, for
though he worked hard as he guided the plow or swung the scythe,
he wove songs in his head. And as he followed his trade year in
year out, from summer to winter, from winter to summer, he
learned all the secrets of the earth and sky, of the hedgerow and
the field.
*Smooth.
And thou poor mousie art turned out into the cold, bleak, winter
weather!--
It goes to his heart to destroy the early daisies with the plow--
*Shelter.
**Bare stubble field.
Robert at this was both hurt and angry, and made up his mind to
leave Scotland for ever and never see his wife and children more.
He got a post as overseer on an estate in Jamaica, but money to
pay for his passage he had none. In order to get money some
friends proposed that he should publish his poems. This he did,
and the book was such a success that instead of going to Jamaica
as an unknown exile Burns went to Edinburgh to be entertained,
f�ted, and flattered by the greatest men of the day.
All the fine ladies and gentlemen were eager to see the plowman
poet. The fuss they made over him was enough to turn the head of
a lesser man. But in spite of all the flattery, Burns, though
pleased and glad, remained as simple as before. He moved among
the grand people in their silks and velvets clad in homespun
clothes "like a farmer dressed in his best to dine with the
laird"* as easily as he had moved among his humble friends. He
held himself with that proud independence which later made him
write--
*Scott.
*Directions.
**Roll.
***Wood.
In many ways his was a misspent life "at once unfinished and a
ruin."* His was the poet's soul bound in the body of clay. He
was an unhappy man, and we cannot but pity him, and yet remember
him with gratitude for the beautiful songs he gave us. In his
own words we may say--
*Carlyle.
Burns was a true son of the soil. There is no art in his songs
but only nature. Apart form his melody what strikes us most is
his truth; he sang of what he saw, of what he felt and knew. He
knew the Scottish peasant through and through. Grave and
humorous, simple and cunning, honest and hypocritical, proud and
independent--every phase of him is to be found in Burns's poems.
He knew love too; and in every phase--happy and unhappy, worthy
and unworthy--he sings of it. But it is of love in truth that he
sings. Here we have no more the make-believe of the Elizabethan
age, no longer the stilted measure of the Georgian. The day of
the heroic couplet is done; with Burns we come back to nature.
BOOK TO READ
WHILE Burns was weaving his wonderful songs among the Lowland
hills of Scotland, another lover of nature was telling of placid
English life, of simple everyday doings, in a quiet little
country town in England. This man was William Cowper.
Then he made up his mind to leave London, and all the excitements
of a life for which he was not fit, and after a few changes here
and there he settled down to a peaceful life with a clergyman and
his wife, named Unwin. And when after two years Mr. Unwin died,
Cowper still lived with his widow. With her he moved to Olney in
Buckinghamshire. It was here that, together with the curate,
John Newton, Cowper wrote the Olney hymns, many of which are
still well loved to-day. Perhaps one of the best is that
beginning--
Cowper was already a man of nearly fifty when these hymns first
appeared. Shortly afterwards he published another volume of
poems in the style of Pope.
It was after this that Cowper found another friend who brought
some brightness into his life. Lady Austen, a widow, took a
house near Cowper and Mrs. Unwin, and became a third in their
friendship. It was she who told Cowper the story of John Gilpin.
The story tickled his fancy so that he woke in the night with
laughter over it. He decided to make a ballad of the story, and
the next day the ballad was finished. I think I need hardly give
you any quotation here. You all know that--
It was Lady Austen, too, who urged Cowper to his greatest work,
The Task. She wanted him to try blank verse, but he objected
that he had nothing to write about. "You can write upon any
subject," replied Lady Austen, "write upon the sofa."
So Cowper accepted the task thus set for him, and began to write.
The first book of The Task is called The Sofa, and through all
the six books we follow the course of his simple country life.
It is the epic of simplicity, at once pathetic and playful. Its
tuneful, easy blank verse never rises to the grandeur of
Milton's, yet there are fine passages in it. Though Cowper lived
a retired and uneventful life, the great questions of his day
found an echo in his heart. Canada had been won and the American
States lost when he wrote--
These lines are from the second book of The Task called The
Timepiece. The third is called The Garden, the fourth The Winter
Evening. There we have the well-known picture of a quiet evening
by the cozy fireside. The post boy has come "with spattered
boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks." He has brought letters
and the newspaper--
The poem ends with two books called The Winter Morning Walk and
The Winter Walk at Noon. Though not grand, The Task is worth
reading. It is, too, an easily read, and easily understood poem,
and through it all we feel the love of nature, the return to
romance and simplicity. In the last book we see Cowper's love of
animals. There he sings, "If not the virtues, yet the worth, of
brutes."
*Macaulay.
His desire was to choose words only which were really used by men
in everyday talk, "and, at the same time, to throw over them a
certain colouring of the imagination."
He tells us that when he was ten years old, or less, already his
mind--
*Prelude, book v.
When Wordsworth first published his poems they were received with
scorn, and he was treated with neglect greater even than most
great poets have had to endure. But in time the tide turned and
people came at last to acknowledge that Wordsworth was not only a
poet, but a great one. He showed men a new way of poetry; he
proved to them that nightingale was as poetical a word as
Philomel, that it was possible to speak of the sun and the moon
as the sun and the moon, and not as Phoebus and Diana. Phoebus,
Diana, and Philomel are, with the thoughts they convey, beautiful
in their right places, but so are the sun, moon, and nightingale.
Wordsworth tried to make men see with new eyes the little
everyday things that they had looked upon week by week and year
by year until they had grown common. He tried to make them see
these things again with "the glory and the freshness of a
dream."*
*Ode, Intimations of Immortality.
Wordsworth fought the battle of the simple word, and phrase, and
thought, and won it. And the poets who came after him, and not
the poets only, but the prose writer too, whether they
acknowledged it or not, whether they knew it or now, entered as
by right into the possession of the kingdom which he had won for
them.
And now let me tell you a little of the life of this nature poet.
*To a Butterfly.
Together they spied out the sparrows' nests and watched the tiny
nestlings as they grew, the big rough boy learning much from his
tender-hearted, gentle sister. In after years he said--
When the mother died these happy days for brother and sister
together were done, for Willie went to school at Hawkshead with
his brothers, and Dorothy was sent to live with her grandfather
at Penrith.
But Wordsworth's school-time was happy too. Hawkshead was among
the beautiful lake and mountain scenery that he loved. He had a
great deal of freedom, and out of school hours could take long
rambles, day and night too. When moon and stars were shining he
would wander among the hills until the spirit of the place laid
hold of him, and he says--
*Prelude, book i.
*Prelude, book i.
Yet among all this noisy boyish fun and laughter, Wordsworth's
strange, keen love of nature took root and grew. At times he
says--
*Prelude, book i.
While Wordsworth was still at school his father died. His uncles
then took charge of him, and after he left school sent him to
Cambridge. Wordsworth did nothing great at college. He took his
degree without honors, and left Cambridge still undecided what
his career in life was to be. He did not feel himself good
enough for the Church. He did not care for law, but rather liked
the idea of being a soldier. That idea, however, he also gave
up, and for a time he drifted.
In those days one of the world's great dramas was being enacted.
The French Revolution had begun. With the great struggle the
poet's heart was stirred, his imagination fired. It seemed to
him that a new dawn of freedom and joy and peace was breaking on
the world, and "France lured him forth." He crossed the Channel,
and for two years he lived through all the storm and stress of
the Revolution. He might have ended his life in the fearful
Reign of Terror which was coming on, had not his friends in
England called him home. He left France full of pity, and
sorrow, and disappointment, for no reign of peace had come, and
the desire for Liberty had been swallowed up in the desire for
Empire.
AFTER Coleridge and Wordsworth once met they soon became fast
friends, and in order to be near Coleridge the Wordsworths moved
to another house near Nether Stowey in Somersetshire.
At school even his fellows saw how clever Coleridge was. He read
greedily and talked with any one who would listen and answer. In
his lonely wanderings about London on "leave days" he was
delighted if he could induce any stray passer-by to talk,
especially, he says, if he was dressed in black. No subject came
amiss to him, religion, philosophy, science, or poetry. From
school Coleridge went to Cambridge, but after a time, getting
into trouble and debt, he ran away and enlisted in a cavalry
regiment under the name of Silas Tomkyn Comberback.
Robert Southey was born in 1774, and was the son of a Bristol
Linen draper, but he was brought up chiefly by an aunt in Bath.
At fourteen he went to school at Westminster, and later to
Balliol College, Oxford. When Coleridge met him he was just
twenty, and Coleridge twenty-two. Like Wordsworth, they were
both fired with enthusiasm for the French Revolution, and they
soon became friends.
With some others of like mind they formed a little society, which
they called the Pantisocracy, from Greek words meaning all-equal-
rule. They decided that they should all marry and then emigrate
to the banks of the Susquehanna (chosen, it has been said,
because of its beautiful name), and there form a little Utopia.
Property was to be in common, each man laboring on the land two
hours a day in order to provide food for the company. But the
fine scheme came to nothing, for meanwhile none of the company
had enough money to pay for his passage to the banks of the
beautiful-sounding river. Coleridge and Southey, however,
carried out part of the program. They both married, their wives
being sisters.
The two friends had many walks and talks together, shaping their
ideas of what poetry should be. They at length decided to
publish a book together to be called Lyrical Ballads.
In this book there was published the poem which of all that
Coleridge write is the best known, The Ancient Mariner. It tells
how this old old sailor stops a guest who is going to a wedding,
and bids him hear a tale. The wedding guest does not wish to
stay, but the old man holds him with his skinny hand--
He hath his will, and tells how the ship sailed forth gayly, and
how it met after a time with storms, and cold, and fog, until at
last it was all beset with ice. Then when to the sailors all
hope seemed lost, an albatross came sailing through the fog.
With joy they hailed it, the only living thing in that wilderness
of ice. They fed it with delight--
Then plague and death came, and every man died except the guilty
Mariner--
But one day as the Mariner watched the water snakes, the only
living things in all that dreadful waste, he blessed them
unaware, merely because they were alive. That self-same moment,
he found that he could pray, and the albatross, which his fellows
in their anger had hung about his neck, dropped from it, and fell
like lead into the sea. Then, relieved from his terrible agony
of soul, the Mariner slept, and when he woke he found that the
dreadful drought was over, and that it was raining. Oh, blessed
relief! But more terrors still he had to endure until at last
the ship drifted homeward--
The shop had indeed reached home, but in the harbor it suddenly
sank like lead. Only the Mariner was saved.
When once more he came to land, he told his tale to a holy hermit
and was shriven, but ever and anon afterward an agony comes upon
him and forces him to tell the tale again, even as he has just
done to the wedding guest. And thus he ends his story--
Among the poems which Wordsworth wrote for the book of Lyrical
Ballads, was one which every one knows, We are Seven. In
another, called Lines written in Early Spring, he gives as it
were the text of all his nature poems, and his creed, for here he
tells us that he believes that all things in Nature, bird and
flower alike, feel.
The book was not a success. People did not understand The
Ancient Mariner, and they laughed at Wordsworth's simple lyrics,
although the last poem in the book, Tintern Abbey, has since
become famous, and is acknowledged as one of the treasures of our
literature.
And now, as this new book was not a success, and as he did not
seem able to make enough money as a poet, Coleridge seriously
began to think of becoming a Unitarian preacher altogether. But,
the Wedgwoods, the famous potters, wealthy men with cultured
minds and kindly hearts, offered him one hundred and fifty pounds
a year if he would give himself up to poetry and philosophy.
After some hesitation, Coleridge consented, and that winter he
set off for a visit to Germany with the Wordsworths.
*Morley.
*Arnold.
BOOKS TO READ
And yet all that Coleridge has left us which reaches the very
highest is very little. But as has been said, "No English poet
can be put above Coleridge when only quality and not quantity is
demanded."* Of The Ancient Mariner I have already told you,
although perhaps it is too full of fearsomeness for you to read
yet. Next to it stands Christabel, which is unfinished. It is
too full of mysterious glamour to translate into mere prose, so I
will not try to tell the story, but here are a few lines which
are very often quoted--
*Stainsbury.
"Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And Constancy lives in realms above;
And Life is thorny; and Youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain.
And thus it chanced, as I divine,
With Roland and Sir Leoline.
Each spake words of high disdain
And insult to his heart's best brother:
They parted--ne'er to meet again!
But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining;
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliff's which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between;--
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once had been."
Coleridge's singing time was short. All his best poetry had been
written before he went to live at Keswick. There his health,
which had never been good, gave way. Unhappy in his home, and
racked with bodily pain, he at length began to use opium in order
to find relief. The habit to which he soon became a slave made
shipwreck of his life. He had always been unstable of purpose
and weak of will, never keeping to one course long. He had tried
journalism, he tried lecturing, he planned books which were never
written. His life was a record of beginnings. As each new plan
failed he yielded easily to the temptation of living on his
friends. He had always been restless in mind. He left his home,
and after wanderings now here now there, he at length found a
home in London with kind, understanding friends. Of him here we
have a pathetic picture drawn by another great man.* "The good
man--he was now getting old, towards sixty perhaps, and gave you
the idea of a life that had been full of sufferings; a life
heavy-laden, half-vanquished, still swimming painfully in seas of
manifold physical and other bewilderment. Brow and head were
round and of massive weight, but the face was flabby and
irresolute. The deep eyes, of a light hazel, were as full of
sorrow as of inspiration, confused pain looked mildly from them,
as in a kind of mild astonishment. The whole figure and air,
good and amiable otherwise, might be called flabby and
irresolute, expressive of weakness under possibility of
strength . . . a heavy-laden, high-aspiring, and surely much
suffering man."
*Carlyle.
And yet to this broken-down giant men crowded eagerly to hear him
talk. Never, perhaps, since the great Sam had held his court had
such a talker been heard. And although there was no Boswell near
to make these conversations live again, the poet's nephew, Henry
Nelson Coleridge, gathered some of his sayings together into a
book which he called Table Talk. With his good friends Coleridge
spent all his remaining life from 1816 till 1834, when he died.
Meanwhile his children and his home were left to the care of
others. And when Coleridge threw off his home ties and duties it
was upon Southey that the burden chiefly fell. And Southey,
kindly and generous, loving his own children fondly, loved and
cared for his nephews and nieces too. We cannot regard Southey
as one of our great poets, but when we read his letters, we must
love him as a man. He wrote several long poems, the two best
known perhaps are The Curse of Kehama and Thalaba, the one a
Hindoo, the other a Mahometan story, but he is better remembered
by his short poems, such as The Battle of Blenheim and The
Inchcape Rock.
For forty years Southey lived at Greta Hall, and from his letters
we get the pleasantest picture of the home-loving, nonsense-
loving "comical papa" who had kept the heart of a boy, even when
his hair grew gray--
And so we see him spending long hours, long years, among his
books, hoping for lasting fame from his poems, and meantime
earning with his prose food for hungry little mouths, shoes for
nimble little feet, with just a trifle over for books, and still
more books. For Southey loved books, and his big library was
lined with them. There were thousands there, many in beautiful
bindings, glowing in soft coloring, gleaming with pale gold, for
he loved to clothe his treasures in fitting garments. When a new
box of books comes he rejoices. "I shall be happier," he says,
"than if his Majesty King George IV were to give orders that I
should be clothed in purple, and sleep upon gold, and have a
chain about my neck, and sit next him because of my wisdom and be
called his cousin."
*Be silent.
YEAR 10
THE 15th of August 1771 was a lucky day for all the boys and
girls and grown-up people too of the English-speaking race, for
on that day Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh. Literature had
already begun to shake off its fetters of art. Romance had begun
to stir in her long sleep, for six years before sturdy baby
Walter was born, Bishop Percy had published a book called
Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. In this book he had gathered
together many old ballads and songs, such as those of Robin Hood
and Patrick Spens. They had almost been forgotten, and yet they
are poems which stir the heart with their plaintive notes,
telling as they do--
*Wordsworth.
Bishop Percy, like a knight of old, laid his lance in rest and
tilted against the prickly briar hedge that had grown up around
the Sleeping Beauty, Romance. But he could not win through and
wake the princess. And although Burns and Wordsworth, Coleridge
and Southey, all knowing it or not, fought on his side, it was
left for another knight to break through the hedge and make us
free of the Enchanted Land. And that knight's name was Walter--
Sir Walter, too--for, like a true knight, he won his title in the
service of his lady.
*Leyden.
*Marmion.
The book was only a moderate success, but in it we may find the
germ of all Scott's later triumphs. For it was the spirit of
these ballads with which his mind was so full which made it
possible for him to write the Metrical Romances that made him
famous.
*Carlyle.
*Marmion.
The first of Scott's song stories was called The Lay of the Last
Minstrel. In it he pictures an old minstrel, the last of all his
race, wandering neglected and despised about the countryside.
But at Newark Castle, the seat of the Duchess of Buccleuch, he
receives kindly entertainment.
This humble boon was granted. The minstrel was led to the room
of state where sat the noble-hearted Duchess with her ladies, and
there began his lay. You must read The Lay itself to learn about
William of Deloraine, the Goblin Page, the Lady Margaret, and
Lord Canstoun, and all the rest. The meter in which Scott wrote
was taken from Coleridge's Christabel. For, though it was not
yet published, it had long been in manuscript, and Scott had
heard part of it repeated by a friend.
Other poems followed The Lay, the best being Marmion and The Lady
of the Lake. Scott's son-in-law says, "The Lay is, I should say,
generally considered as the most natural and original, Marmion as
the most powerful and splendid, The Lady of the Lake as the most
interesting, romantic, picturesque, and graceful of his great
poems." Fame and money poured in upon Scott, and not upon him
only, but upon Scotland. For the new poet had sung the beauties
of the rugged country so well that hundreds of English flocked to
see it for themselves. Scotland became the fashion, and has
remained so ever since.
It was at Abbotsford that Scott made his home for the rest of his
life. Here he put off the gown and wig of a barrister, and
played the part of a country gentleman. He rode about
accompanied by his children and his friends, and followed by his
dogs. He fished, and walked, and learned to know every one
around, high and low. He was beloved by all the countryside, for
he was kindly and courteous to all, and was "aye the gentleman."
He would sit and talk with a poor man in his cottage, listening
to his tales of long ago, with the same ease and friendliness as
he would entertain the great in his own beautiful house. And
that house was always thronged with visitors, invited and
uninvited, with friends who came out of love of the genial host,
with strangers who came out of curiosity to see the great
novelist. For great as Scott's fame as a poet, it was nothing to
the fame he earned as a story-teller.
"THE army, moving by its right from off the ground on which they
had rested, soon entered the path through the morass, conducting
their march with astonishing silence and great rapidity. The
mist had not risen to the higher grounds, so that for some time
they had the advantage of starlight. But this was lost as the
stars faded before approaching day, and the head of the marching
column, continuing its descent, plunged as it were into the heavy
ocean of fog, which rolled its white waves over the whole plain,
and over the sea by which it was bounded. Some difficulties were
now to be encountered, inseparable from darkness, a narrow,
broken, and marshy path, and the necessity of preserving union in
the march. These, however, were less inconvenient to
Highlanders, from their habits of life, than they would have been
to any other troops, and they continued a steady and swift
movement.
. . . . . . . . . .
. .
"The clan of Fergus had now gained the firm plain, which had
lately borne a large crop of corn. But the harvest was gathered
in, and the expanse was unbroken by trees, bush, or interruption
of any kind. The rest of the army were following fast, when they
heard the drums of the enemy beat the general. Surprise,
however, had made no part of their plan, so they were not
disconcerted by this intimation that the foe was upon his guard
and prepared to receive them. It only hastened their
dispositions for the combat, which were very simple.
. . . . . . . . . .
. .
"'Down with your plaid, Waverley,' cried Fergus, throwing off his
own; 'we'll win silks for our tartans before the sun is above the
sea.'
After Waverley other novels followed fast, each one adding to the
reputation of the unknown author, and now, from the name of the
first, we call them all the Waverley Novels.
*James Hogg.
Everybody read The Novels, from the King to the shepherd.
Friends, money, and fame came tumbling in upon the author. He
had refused to be made Poet Laureate, and passed the honor on to
Southey, but he accepted a baronetcy. He added wing after wing
to his beautiful house, and acre after acre to his land, and
rejoiced in being laird of Abbotsford.
The speed with which Scott wrote was marvelous. His house was
always full of visitors, yet he always had time to entertain
them. He was never known to refuse to see a friend, gentle or
simple, and was courteous even to the bores who daily invaded his
home. He had unbounded energy. He rose early in the morning,
and before the rest of the family was astir had finished more
than half of his daily task of writing. Thus by twelve o'clock
he was free to entertain his guests.
It was a staggering blow, and most men would have been utterly
crushed by it. Not so Scott. He was proud, proud of his old
name and of his new-founded baronial hall. He was stout of heart
too. At fifty-five he began life again, determined with his pen
to wipe out the debt. Many were the hands stretched out to help
him; rich men offered their thousands, poor men their scanty
savings, but Scott refused help from both rich and poor. His own
hand must wipe out the debt, he said. Time was all he asked. So
with splendid courage and determination, the like of which has
perhaps never been known, he set to work.
But evil days had begun for Sir Walter. Scarcely four months
after the crash, his wife died, and so he lost a companion of
nearly thirty years. "I think my heart will break," he cries in
the first bitterness of sorrow. "Lonely, aged, deprived of my
family, an impoverished, an embarrassed man." But dogged courage
comes to him again. "Well, that is over, and if it cannot be
forgotten must be remembered with patience." So day after day he
bent to his work. Every morning saw his appointed task done.
Besides novels and articles he wrote a History of Napoleon, a
marvelous book, considering it was written in eighteen months.
Then Scott began the book which will be the first of all his
books to interest you, The Tales of a Grandfather. This is a
history of Scotland, and it was written for his grandson John
Hugh Lockhard, or Hugh Littlejohn as he is called in The Tales.
"I will make," said Scott, "if possible, a book that a child
shall understand, yet a man shall feel some temptation to peruse
should he chance to take it up."
In the December of the same year the first part of The Tales was
published, and at once was a tremendous success, a success as
great almost as any of the novels. Hugh Littlejohn liked The
Tales too. "Dear Grandpapa," he writes, "I thank you for the
books. I like my own picture and the Scottish chief: I am going
to read them as fast as I can."
I have not told you any of Scott's stories here, because, unlike
many of the books we have spoken of, they are easily to be had.
And the time will soon come, if it has not come already, when you
can read Sir Walter's books, just as he wrote them. It is best,
I think, that you should read them so, for Sir Walter Scott is
perhaps the first of all our great writers nearly the whole of
whose books a child can read without help. You will find many
long descriptions in them, but do not let them frighten you. You
need not read them all the first time, and very likely you will
want to read them the second time.
But perhaps before you read his novels you will like to read his
Metrical Romances. For when we are children--big children
perhaps, but still children--is the time to read them. Long ago
in the twelfth century, when the people of England were simple
and unlearned, they loved Metrical Romances, and we when we are
simple and unlearned may love them too. Many of these old
romances, however, are hard to get, and they are written in a
language hard for many of us to understand. But Sir Walter
Scott, in the nineteenth century, has recreated for us all the
charm of those old tales. For this then, let us thank and
remember him.
She was a weak and passionate woman, and sometimes she petted and
spoiled her little boy, sometimes she treated him cruelly,
calling him "a lame brat," than which nothing could hurt him
more, for poor little George was born lame, and all his life long
he felt sore and angry about it. To him too had been given the
passionate temper of both father and mother, and when he was
angry he would fall into "silent rages," bite pieces out of
saucers, or tear his pinafores to bits.
But when George was ten this old uncle died. Then mother and son
said good-by to Aberdeen, and at length traveled southwards to
take possession of their great house and broad lands. But the
heritage was not so great as at first sight would appear, for the
house was so ruinous that it was scarcely fit to live in, and the
wicked lord had sold some of the land. However, as the sale was
unlawful, after much trouble the land was recovered.
Byron had now to take his place among boys of his own class, and
when he was thirteen he was sent to school at Harrow. But he
hated school. He was shy as "a wild mountain colt" and somewhat
snobbish, and at first was most unpopular.
Byron hated Harrow until his last year and a half there; then he
liked it. And when he knew he must leave and go to Cambridge, he
was so unhappy that he counted the days that remained, not with
joy at the thought of leaving, but with sorrow.
Then after a sneer at Scott for making money by his poems, Byron
concludes with this passage:--
"These are the themes that claim our plaudits now;
These are the bards to whom the muse must bow;
While Milton, Dryden, Pope, alike forgot,
Resign their hallowed bays to Walter Scott."
When people read this satire, they realized that a new poet had
appeared. But it was not until Byron published his first long
poem, called Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, that he became famous.
Then his success was sudden and amazing. "I woke up one morning
and found myself famous," he says. "His fame," says another poet
and friend who wrote his life,* "seemed to spring up like the
palace of a fairy tale, in a night." He was praised and lauded
by high and low. Every one was eager to known him, and for a
time he became the spoiled darling of society.
*Moore.
Childe Harold is a long poem of four cantos, but now only two
cantos were published. The third was added in 1816, the fourth
in 1818. It is written in the Spenserian stanza, with here and
there songs and ballads in other meters, and in the first few
verses there is even an affectation of Spenserian wording. But
the poet soon grew tired of that, and returned to his own
English. Childe is used in the ancient sense of knight, and the
poem tells of the wanderings of a gloomy, vicious, world-worn
man.
Then in thought Byron goes over all that took place that fateful
day.
These are a few verses from one of the best known parts of Childe
Harold. There are many other verses equally well known. They
have become the possession of almost every schoolboy. Some of
them you will read in school books, and when you are grown up and
able to distinguish between what is vulgar and what is good and
beautiful in it, I hope you will read the whole poem.
For two years Byron was as popular as man might be. Then came a
change. From the time that he was a child he had always been in
love, first with one and then with another. His heart was
tinder, ever ready to take fire. Now he married. At first all
went well. One little baby girl was born. Then troubles came,
troubles which have never been explained, and for which we need
not seek an explanation now, and one day Lady Byron left her
husband never to return.
The world which had petted and spoiled the poet now turned from
the man. He was abused and decried; instead of being courted he
was shunned. So in anger and disgust, Byron left the country
where he found no sympathy. He never returned to it, the rest of
his life being spent as a wanderer upon the Continent.
*Mazzini.
Much that Byron wrote was almost worthless. He has none of the
haunting sense of the beauty of words in perfect order that marks
the greatest poets. He has no passion for the correct use of
words, and often his song seems tuneless and sometimes vulgar.
For in Byron's undisciplined, turgid soul there is a strain of
coarseness and vulgarity which not seldom shows itself in his
poetry, spoiling some of his most beautiful lines. His poetry is
egotistical too, that is, it is full of himself. And again and
again it has been said that Byron was always his own hero. "He
never had more than a singe subject--himself. No man has ever
pushed egotism further than he."* In all his dark and gloomy
heroes we see Lord Byron, and it is not only himself which he
gives to the world's gaze, but his wrongs and his sorrows. Yet
in spite of all its faults, there is enough that is purely
beautiful in his work to give Byron rank as a poet. He has been
placed on a level with Wordsworth. One cultured writer whose
judgment on literature we listen to with respect has said:
"Wordsworth and Byron stand out by themselves. When the year
1900 is turned, and our nation comes to recount her poetic
glories of the century which has then just ended, the first names
with her will be these."** But there are many who will deny him
this high rank. "He can only claim to be acknowledged as a poet
of the third class," says another great poet,*** "who now and
then rises into the second, but speedily relapses into the lower
element where he was born." And yet another has said that his
poetry fills the great space through which our literature has
moved from the time of Johnson to the time of Wordsworth. "It
touches the Essay of Man**** at the one extremity, and The
Excursion at the other."***** So you see Byron's place in our
literature is hardly settled yet.
*Scherer.
**Arnold.
***Swinburne.
****By Pope.
*****Macaulay.
When Byron left England he fled from the contempt of his fellows.
His life on the Continent did little to lessen that contempt.
But before he died he redeemed his name from the scorner.
And this struggle woke all that was generous in the heart of
Byron, the worn man of the world. Like his own Childe Harold,
"With pleasure drugg'd he almost long'd for woe." So to Greece
he went, and the last nine months of his life were spent to such
good purpose that when he died the whole Greek nation mourned.
He had hoped to die sword in hand, but that was not to be. His
body was worn with reckless living, and could ill bear any
strain. One day, when out for a long ride, he became heated, and
then soaked by a shower of rain. Rheumatic fever followed, and
ten days later he lay dead. He was only thirty-six.
These lines are from Byron's last poem, written on his thirty-
sixth birthday.
WHEN Byron wandered upon the Continent he met and made friends
with another poet, a greater than himself. This poet was called
Percy Bysshe Shelley, and of him I am going to tell you something
in this chapter.
On the 4th of August, 1792, Percy Bysshe Shelley was born at
Field Place, near the village of Warnham, in Sussex. His father,
"a well-meaning, ill-doing, wrong-headed man," was of a good
family, and heir to a baronetcy. His mother was a beautiful
woman.
When we next hear of him he is a big boy, the hero of the nursery
with four little sisters, and a wee, toddling, baby brother, to
all of whom he loved to play big brother. His sisters would
often sit on his knee and listen to the wonderful tales he told.
There were stories of the Great Tortoise which lived in a pond
near. True, the Great Tortoise was never seen, but that made it
all the more mysterious and wonderful, and any unusual noise was
put down to the Great Tortoise. There were other stories about
the Great Old Snake which lived in the garden. This really was
seen, and perhaps it was the same serpent which two hundred years
before had been known to lurk about the countryside. "He could
jut out his neck an ell," it was said, "and cast his venom about
four rods; a serpent of countenance very proud, at the sight or
hearing of men or cattle, raising his head seeming to listen and
look about with great arrogancy." But if it was this same
serpent it had lost its venom, and in the days when Bysshe and
his sisters played about the garden, they looked upon it as a
friend. One day, however, a gardener killed it by mistake, when
he was cutting the grass with a scythe. So there was an end of
the Great Old Snake. But the Tortoise and the Snake were not the
only wonderful things about Field Place. There was a big garret
which was never used, with beneath it a secret room, the only
entrance to which was through a plank in the garret floor. This,
according to the big brother, was the dwelling-place of an
alchemist "old and grey with a long beard." Here with his lamp
and magic books he wrought his wonders, and "Some day" the eager
children were promised a visit to him. Meanwhile Bysshe himself
played the alchemist, and with his sisters dressed up in strange
costumes to represent fiends or spirits he ran about with liquid
fire until this dangerous play was stopped. Then he made an
electric battery and amused himself by giving his sisters
"shocks" to the secret terror of at least one of them whose heart
would sink with fear when she saw her brother appear with a roll
of brown paper, a bit of wire, and a bottle. But one day she
could not hide her terror any longer, and after that the kind big
brother never worried her any more to have shocks.
Sometimes, too, their games took them further afield, and led by
Bysshe the children went on long rambles through woods and
meadows, climbing walls and scrambling through hedges, and coming
home tired and muddy. Bysshe was so happy with his sisters and
little brother that he decided to buy a little girl and bring her
up as his own. One day a little gypsy girl came to the back
door, and he though she would do very well. His father and
mother, however, thought otherwise, so the little girl was not
bought.
But the boy who was so lively with his sisters, at times was
quiet and thoughtful. Sometimes he would slip out of the house
on moonlight nights. His anxious parents would then send an old
servant after him, who would return to say that "Master Bysshe
only took a walk, and came back again." A very strange form of
amusement it must have seemed to his plain matter-of-fact father.
*Hogg.
This boy and girl marriage was a terrible mistake, and three
years later husband and wife separated.
I can tell you very little more of Shelley's life, some of it was
wrong, much of it was sad, as it could hardly fail to be
following on this wrong beginning. When you grow older you will
be able to read it with charity and understanding. Meantime keep
the picture of the kindly big brother, and imagine him growing
into a lovable and brave man, into a poet who wins our hearts
almost unawares by the beauty of his poetry, his poetry which has
been called "a beautiful dream of the future." Of some of it I
shall now tell you a little.
*Francis Thompson.
*Song.
when we have heard him sing of these, and have understood with
our heart, they have an added meaning for us. We love and
understand the song of the skylark better for having heard
Shelley sing of it.
As we listen to the lark singing we look upward and see the light
summer clouds driving over the blue sky. They, too, have a song
which once the listening poet heard.
We find his sadness, too, in his Ode to the West Wind, but it
ends on a note of hope. Here are the last verses--
And when his heart was crushed with the knowledge of the wrong
and cruelty in the world, it was through love alone that he saw
the way to better and lovelier things. "To purify life of its
misery and evil was the ruling passion of his soul,"* said one
who loved him and knew him perhaps better than any living being.
And it was through love and the beauty of love that he hoped for
the triumph of human weal.
*Mary Shelley.
The ideas of the Revolution touched him as they had touched Byron
and Wordsworth, and although Wordsworth turned away from them
disappointed, Shelley held on hopefully.
*Prometheus Unbound.
*Lord Byron.
**Ierne=Ireland sends Thomas Moore to mourn.
Shelley mourned for Keats, little knowing that soon others would
mourn for himself. Little more than a year after writing this
poem he too lay dead.
Shelley had passed much of his time on the Continent, and in 1822
he was living in a lonely spot on the shores of the Bay of
Spezia. He always loved the sea, and he here spent many happy
hours sailing about the bay in his boat the Don Juan. Hearing
that a friend had arrived from England he sailed to Leghorn to
welcome him.
Shelley met his friend, and after a week spent with him and with
Lord Byron, he set out for home. The little boat never reached
its port, for on the journey it was wrecked, we shall never know
how. A few days later Shelley's body was thrown by the waves
upon the sandy shore. In his pocket was found a copy of Keats's
poems doubled back, as if he had been reading to the last moment
and hastily thrust the book into his pocket. The body was
cremated upon the shore, and the ashes were buried in the
Protestant cemetery at Rome, not far from the grave of Keats.
"It is an open space among the ruins, covered in winter with
violets and daisies. It might make one in love with death, to
think that one should be buried in so sweet a place." So Shelley
himself had written in the preface to Adonais.
Over his grave was placed a simple stone with the date of his
birth and death and the words "Cor Cordium"--heart of hearts.
Beneath these words are some lines from the Tempest which Shelley
had loved--
JOHN KEATS, the poet whose death Shelley mourned in Adonais, was
by a few years the younger, having been born in 1795. He was
born, too, in very different circumstances, for whereas Shelley
was the eldest son of a country gentleman, John Keats, was the
eldest son of a stableman.
*E. Holmes.
Very soon after John went to school his father was killed by a
fall from his horse, his grandfather died too, and his mother
married again. But the marriage was not happy and she soon left
her new husband and went to live with her own mother at Edmonton.
So for five years John's life was spent between school and his
grandmother's house. They were a happy family. The brothers
loved each other though they jangled and fought, and they loved
their mother and little sister too.
So the years went on, and John showed not the lightest sign of
being a poet. Some doggerel rimes he wrote to his sister show
the boy he was, not very unlike other boys.
After John had been at school some time he suddenly began to care
for books. He began to read and read greedily, he won all the
literature prizes, and even on half-holidays he could hardly be
driven out to join in the games of his comrades, preferring
rather to sit in the quiet schoolroom translating from Latin or
French, and even when he was driven forth he went book in hand.
It was while John was still at school that his mother died and
all her children were placed under the care of a guardian. As
John was now fifteen, their guardian took him from school, and it
was decided to make him a doctor. He was apprenticed, in the
fashion of the day, to a surgeon at Edmonton, for five years.
Keats seems to have been quite pleased with this arrangement.
His new studies still left him time to read. He was within
walking distance of his old school, and many a summer afternoon
he spent reading in the garden with Cowden Clarke, the son of his
old schoolmaster, in whom Keats had found a friend. From this
friend he borrowed Spenser's Faery Queen, and having read it a
new wonder-world seemed opened to him. "He ramped through the
scenes of the romance like a young horse turned into a spring
meadow,"* and all through Keats's poetry we find the love of
beautiful coloring and of gorgeous detail that we also find in
Spenser. It was Spenser that awakened in Keats his sleeping gift
of song, and the first verses which he wrote were in imitation of
the Elizabethan poet.
*Cowden Clarke.
Undismayed at the ill success of his first book, the next year he
published his long poem Endymion.
Then the poet tells us what are the things of beauty of which he
thinks.
But although throughout the long poem there are lovely passages,
and one or two most beautiful lyrics, the critics of the day saw
only the faults of which Endymion is full, and the poem was
received with a storm of abuse.
Soon after Keats published this poem, he, with a friend, set out
on a walking tour to the Lake Country and to Scotland. This was
Keats's first sight of real mountains, and he gloried in the
grand scenery, but said "human nature is finer." When Keats set
out there was not a sign of the invalid about him. He walked
twenty or thirty miles a day and cheerfully bore the discomforts
of travel. But the tour proved too much for his strength. He
caught a bad cold and sore throat, and was ordered home by the
doctor. He went by boat, arriving brown, shabby, and almost
shoeless, among his London friends.
Keats never quite recovered his good health, and other griefs and
troubles crowded in upon him. It was after his return from this
tour that his dearly loved brother, Tom, died. Cruel criticisms
of his poetry hurt him at the same time, and he was in trouble
about money, for the family guardian had not proved a good
manager. And now to this already overcharged heart something
else was added. Keats fell in love. The lady he loved was young
and beautiful, but commonplace. Keats himself describes her when
he first met her as "beautiful and elegant, graceful, silly,
fashionable, and strange." Her beauty and strangeness won for
her a way to the poet's heart. Love, however, brought to him no
joyful rest, but rather passionate, jealous restlessness. Yet in
spite of all his troubles, Keats continued to write poems which
will ever be remembered as among the most beautiful in our
language.
Some day you will read Keats's metrical romances, and now I will
give you a few verses from some of his odes, for in his odes we
have Keats's poetry at its very best. Here are some verses from
his ode On a Grecian Urn. You have seen such a vase, perhaps,
with beautiful sculptured figures on it, dancing maidens and
piping shepherds.
*Embroidery.
And now remembering how Shelley sang of the skylark you will like
to read how his brother poet sang of the nightingale.
*Swinburne.
Hyperion, who gives his name to the poem, was the Sun-god who was
dethroned by Apollo. When the poem opens we see the old god
Saturn already fallen--
How Shelley mourned for him you have read. How the friends who
knew and loved him mourned we learn from what they say of him.
"I cannot afford to lose him," wrote one. "If I know what it is
to love, I truly love John Keats." Another says,* "He was the
most unselfish of human creatures," and still another,** "a
sweeter tempered man I never knew."
*Haydon.
**Bailey.
In a letter which reached Rome too late was this message for
Keats, "Tell that great poet and noble-hearted man that we shall
all bear his memory in the most precious parts of our hearts, and
that the world shall bow their heads to it, as our loves do."
We bow our heads to his memory and say farewell to him in these
words of his own fairy song--
JOHN KEATS was little more than a month old, when far away across
the Border another little baby boy was born. His parent, too
were simple folk, and he, too, was born to be great.
This boy's name was Thomas Carlyle. His father was a stone-mason
and had built with his own hands the house in which his son
Thomas was born. The little village of Ecclefechan was about six
miles from the Solway Firth, among the pasture lands of the bale
of Annan. Here Thomas grew to be a boy running about barefooted
and sturdy with his many brothers and sisters, and one step-
brother older than himself.
But he did not run about quite wild, for by the time he was five
his mother had taught him to read and his father had taught him
to do sums, and then he was sent to the village school.
James Carlyle was a good and steady workman. Long afterwards his
famous son said of him, "Nothing that he undertook to do but he
did it faithfully and like a true man. I shall look on the
houses he built with a certain proud interest. They stand firm
and sound to the heart all over his little district. No one that
comes after him will ever say, 'Here was the finger of a hollow
eye-servant.' They are little texts to me of the gospel of man's
free will." But there were meanwhile many little folks to
clothe, many hungry little mouths to fill, so their clothes were
of the plainest, and porridge and milk, and potatoes forming
their only fare. "It was not a joyful life," says Thomas--"what
life is?--yet a safe, quiet one; above most others, or any others
I have witnessed, a wholesome one."
Between the earnest and frugal father and mother and their
children there was a great and reverent though quiet love, and
poor though they were, the parents determined that their children
should be well taught, so when Thomas was ten he was sent to a
school at Annan some five miles away, where he could learn more
than in the little village school.
"My schoolfellows were boys, most rude boys, and obeyed the
impulse of rude nature which bids the deer herd fall upon any
stricken hart, the duck flock put to death any broken-winged
brother or sister, and on all hands the strong tyrannise over the
weak."
The result was a fight in which Thomas got the worst, but, he had
shown his fellows what he could do, he was tormented no longer.
Yet ever afterwards he bore an unhappy remembrance of those days
at school.
After three years his school-days came to an end. He was not yet
fourteen, but he had proved himself so eager a scholar that his
father decided to send him to college and let him become a
minister.
So early one November morning he set out in the cold and dark
upon his long tramp of more than eighty miles to Edinburgh. It
was dark when he left the house, and his father and mother went
with him a little way, and then they turned back and left Tom to
trudge along in the growing light, with another boy a year or two
older who was returning to college.
To Carlyle, who hated noises, who all his life long waged war
against howling dogs and "demon" fowls, the silence and
loneliness were delightful. His work took all his thoughts,
filled all his life. He did not remember that what to him was
simply peaceful quiet was for his witty, social wife a dreary
desert of loneliness. Carlyle was not only, as his mother said,
"gey ill to deal wi'," but also "gey ill to live wi'." For he
was a genius and a sick genius. He was nervous and bilious and
suffered tortures from indigestion which made him often gloomy
and miserable.
It was not a happy fortune which cast Jane and Thomas Carlyle
together into this loneliness. Still the days passed not all in
gloom, Thomas writing a wonderful book, Sartor Resartus, and Jane
using all her cleverness to make the home beautiful and
comfortable. For they were very poor, and Jane, who before her
marriage had no knowledge of housekeeping, found herself obliged
to cook and do much of the housework herself.
*Froude.
*Life of Tennyson.
So once more he set to work rewriting all that had been lost. In
1837 the book was published, and from that time Carlyle took his
place in the world as a man of genius. But money was still
scarce, so as a means of making some, he gave several courses of
lectures. But he hated it. "O heaven!" he cries, "I cannot
speak. I can only gasp and write and stutter, a spectacle to
gods and fashionables,--being forced to it by want of money."
One course of these lectures--the last--was on Heroes and Her
Worship. This may be one of the first of Carlyle's book that you
will care to read, and you may now like to hear what he has to
say of Samuel Johnson in The Hero as a Man of Letters.
"As for Johnson, I have always considered him to be, by nature,
one of our great English souls. A strong and noble man; so much
left undeveloped in him to the last; in a kindlier element what
might he not have been,--Poet, Priest, Sovereign Ruler! On the
whole, a man must not complain of his 'element," or his 'time' or
the like; it is thriftless work doing so. His time is bad; well
then, he is there to make it better!--
"The largest soul that was in all England; and provision made for
it of 'fourpence halfpenny a day.' Yet a giant, invincible soul;
a true man's. One remembers always that story of the shoes at
Oxford; the rough, seamy-faced, raw-boned College Servitor
stalking about, in winter season, with his shoes worn out; how
the charitable Gentleman Commoner secretly places a new pair at
his door, and the raw-boned Servitor, lifting them, looking at
them near, with his dim eyes, with what thought,--pitches them
out of window! Wet feet, mud, frost, hunger, or what you will;
but not beggary: we cannot stand beggary! Rude stubborn self-
help here; a whole world of squalor, rudeness, confused misery
and want, yet of nobleness and manfulness withal.
"It is a type of the man's life, this pitching away of the shoes,
an original man;--not a second hand, borrowing or begging man.
Let us stand on our own basis, at any rate! On such shoes as we
ourselves can get. On frost and mud, if you will, but honestly
on that;--On the reality and substance which nature gives us, not
on the semblance, on the thing she has give another than us!-
"And yet with all this rugged pride of manhood and self-help, was
there ever soul more tenderly affectionate, loyally submissive to
what was really higher than he? Great souls are always loyally
submissive, reverent to what is over them; only small souls are
otherwise. . . .
I give this quotation from Heroes because there is, in some ways
a great likeness between Johnson and Carlyle. Both were sincere,
and both after a time of poverty and struggle ruled the thought
of their day. For Carlyle became known by degrees, and became,
like Johnson before him, a great literary man. He was sought
after by the other writers of his day, who came to listen to the
growlings of the "Sage of Chelsea."
*Scherer.
*J. S. Mill.
Among the many friends Carlyle made was the young poet Alfred
Tennyson. Returning from a walk one day he found a splendidly
handsome young man sitting in the garden talking to his wife. It
was the poet.
Here is how Carlyle describes his new friend: "A fine, large-
featured, dime-eyed, bronze-coloured, shaggy-headed man is
Alfred; dusty, smoky, free and easy; who swims outwardly and
inwardly with great composure in an articulate element as of
tranquil chaos and tobacco smoke; great, now and then when he
does emerge; a most restful, brotherly, whole-hearted man." Or
again: "Smokes infinite tobacco. His voice is musical,
metallic, fit for loud laughter and piercing wail, and all that
may lie between. I do not meet in these late decades such
company over a pipe. We shall see what he will grow to."*
The years passed and Carlyle added book to book. Perhaps of them
all that which we should be most grateful for is his Life and
Letters of Cromwell. For in this book he set Cromwell in a new
light, a better light than he had ever been set before. Carlyle
is a hero worshiper, and in Cromwell as a hero he can find no
fault. He had of course his faults like other men, and he had no
need of such blind championship. For in his letters and
speeches, gathered together and given to the world by Carlyle, he
speaks for himself. In them we find one to whom we may look up
as a true hero, a man of strength to trust. We find, too, a man
of such broad kindliness, a man of such a tender human heart that
we may love him.
"No critic," says his first biographer, Froude, "no critic after
the completion of Frederick, challenged Carlyle's right to a
place beside the greatest of English authors, past and present."
He was a great historian, but in the history he gives us not dead
facts, but living, breathing men and women. His pages are as
full of color and of life as the pages of Shakespeare.
The old days of struggle and want were long over, but the
Carlyles still lived the simple life in the little Chelsea house.
As another writer* has quaintly put it, "Tom Carlyle lives in
perfect dignity in a little 40 pound house in Chelsea, with a
snuffy Scotch maid to open the door; and the best company in
England ringing at it."
*Thackeray.
Fifty years before, he had left the University a poor and unknown
lad. Now at seventy-one, a famous man, he returned to make his
speech upon entering his office as Rector.
The light indeed had gone out. The rest of his life was a sad
twilight, filled with cruel remorse. He still wrote a little,
and friends were kind, but his real work in life was done, and he
felt bitterly alone.
BOOKS TO READ
William reached home safely and was very happy with kind aunts
and grandmother until he went to school. And school he did not
like at all. Long afterwards in one of his books he wrote, "It
was governed by a horrible little tyrant, who made our young
lives so miserable, that I remember kneeling by my little bed of
a night and saying, 'Pray God, I may dream of my mother.'"*
*Roundabout Papers.
But he left this school and when he was about eleven went to
Charterhouse. Here Thackeray was not much happier. He was a
pretty, gentle boy, and not particularly clever, either at games
or at lessons. The boys were rough and even brutal to each
other, and Thackeray had to take his share of the blows, and got
a broken nose which disfigured his good-looking face ever after.
And when he left school he took away with him a painful
remembrance of all he had had to suffer. But by degrees the
suffering faded out of his memory and he looked upon his old
school with kindly eyes, and called it no longer Slaughterhouse,
but Grey Friars, in his books.
But these happy days did not last long. The young mother became
ill; gradually she became worse, until at last the light of
reason died out of her brain, and although she lived on for many
years, it was a living death, for she knew no one and took no
notice of anything that went on around her.
The happy home was broken up. The children went to live with
their great-grandmother, who found them "inconveniently young,"
while Thackeray remained alone in London. But though he was
heart-broken and lonely, he kept a loving memory of the happy
days gone by. Long after he wrote to a friend who was going to
be married, "Although my own marriage was a wreck, as you know, I
would do it over again, for behold, Love is the crown and
completion of all earthly good. The man who is afraid of his
future never deserved one."
Thackeray was already making a way with his pen, and now he found
a new opening. Most of you know Punch. He and his dog Toby are
old friends. And Mr. Punch with his humped back and big nose
"comes out" every week to make us laugh. He makes us laugh, too,
with kindly laughter, for, as Thackeray himself said, "there
never were before published in this world so many volumes that
contained so much cause for laughing, so little for blushing. It
is easy to be witty and wicked, so hard to be witty and wise!"
But once upon a time there was no Punch, strange though it may
seem. It was just at this time, indeed, that Punch was published
and Thackeray became one of the earliest contributors, and
continued for ten years both to draw pictures and write papers
for it. It was in Punch that his famous "Snob Papers" appeared.
What is a Snob? Thackeray says, "He who meanly admires mean
things."
"The lads with gold and silver lace are sons of rich gentlemen,
and called Fellow Commoners; they are privileged to feed better
than the pensioners, and to have wine with their victuals, which
the latter can only get in their rooms.
"The unlucky boys who have no tassels to their caps, are called
sizars--servitors at Oxford--(a very pretty and gentlemanlike
title). A distinction is made in their clothes because they are
poor; for which reason they wear a badge of poverty, and are not
allowed to take their meals with their fellow students."
But the same pen that wrote sharply and satirically about snobs,
wrote loving letters in big round hand to his dear daughters, who
were living far away in Paris. For either child he used a
different hand, so that each might know at once to whom the
letter was addressed. Here is part of one to his "dearest
Nanny." "How glad I am that it is a black puss and not a black
nuss you have got! I thought you did not know how to spell
nurse, and had spelt it en-you-double-ess; but I see the spelling
gets better as the letters grow longer: they cannot be too long
for me. Laura must be a very good-natured girl. I hope my dear
Nanny is so too, not merely to her school mistress and friends,
but to everybody--to her servants and her nurses. I would sooner
have you gentle and humble-minded than ever so clever. Who was
born on Christmas Day? Somebody Who was so great, that all the
world worships Him; and so good that all the world loves Him; and
so gentle and humble that He never spoke an unkind word. And
there is a little sermon and a great deal of love and affection
from papa."*
The Book of Snobs brought Thackeray into notice, and now that he
was becoming well known and making more money, he once more made
a home for his daughters, and they came to London to live with
their father. Everything was new and strange to the little
girls. There was a feeling of London they thought, in the new
house, and "London smelt of tobacco." Thus once more, says his
daughter, "after his first happy married years, my father had a
home and a family--if a house, two young children, three
servants, and a little black cat can be called a family."
Thackeray was a very big man, being six feet three or four. He
must have seemed a very big papa to the little girls of six and
eight, who were, no doubt, very glad to be again beside their
great big kind father, and he, on his side, was very glad to have
his little girls to love, and he took them about a great deal to
the theater and concerts. They helped him in many little ways
and thought it joy to leave lessons in the schoolroom upstairs
and come downstairs to help father, and be posed as models for
his drawings.
It was now that Thackeray wrote his first great novel, his
greatest some people think, Vanity Fair. I cannot tell you about
it now, but when you are a very little older you will like to
read of clever and disagreeable Becky Sharp, of dear Dobbin, and
foolish Amelia, and all the rest of the interesting people
Thackeray creates for us. Thackeray has been called a cynic,
that is one who does not believe in the goodness of human nature,
and who sneers at and finds fault with everything. And reading
Vanity Fair when we are very young we are apt to think that is
so, but later we come to see the heart of goodness there is in
him, and when we have read his books we say to ourselves, "What a
truly good man Thackeray must have been." "He could not have
painted Vanity Fair as he has," says another writer,* "unless
Eden had been shining brightly in his inner eyes."
*George Brimley.
After Vanity Fair other novels followed, the best of all being
Esmond. Esmond is perhaps the finest historical novel in our
language. It is a story of the time of Queen Anne, and when we
read it we feel as if the days of Addison and Steele lived again.
But with Thackeray the historical novel is very different from
the historical novel of Scott. With Thackeray his imaginary
people hold the chief place, the real people only form a
background, while in many of Scott's novels the real people claim
our attention most.
I have no room in this book to tell you the story, but there is a
great deal of fun in it, and I hope you will read it for
yourselves. Here, for instance, is what happened to a porter for
being rude to the fairy Blackstick. After saying many other rude
things, he asked if she thought he was going to stay at the door
all day.
"'You are going to stay at that door all day and all night, and
for many a long year,' the fairy said, very majestically; and
Gruffenuff, coming out of the door, straddling before it with his
great calves, burst out laughing, and cried 'Ha, ha, ha! this is
a good un! Ha--ah what's this? Let me down--O-o-H'm!' and then
he was dumb.
"For as the fairy waved her wand over him, he felt himself rising
off the ground, and fluttering up against the door, and then, as
if a screw ran into his stomach, he felt a dreadful pain there,
and was pinned to the door; and then his arms flew up over his
head; and his legs, after writhing about wildly, twisted under
his body; and he felt cold, cold, growing over him, as if he was
turning into metal; and he said, 'O-o-H'm!' and could say no
more, because he was dumb.
"He was turned into metal! He was from being brazen, brass! He
was neither more nor less than a knocker! An there he was,
nailed to the door in the blazing summer day, till he burned
almost red-hot; and there he was, nailed to the door all the
bitter winter nights, till his brass nose was dropping with
icicles. And the postman came and rapped at him, and the
vulgarist boy with a letter came and hit him up against the door.
And the King and Queen coming home from a walk that evening, the
King said, 'Hallo, my dear! you have had a new knocker put on the
door. Why, it's rather like our porter in the face. What has
become of that old vagabond?' And the housemaid came and
scrubbed his nose with sand-paper; and once when the Princess
Angelica's little sister was born, he was tied up in an old kid
glove; and another night, some larking young men tried to wrench
him off, and put him to the most excruciating agony with a
turnscrew. And then the queen had a fancy to have the colour of
the door altered, and the painters dabbed him over the mouth and
eyes, and nearly choked him, as they painted him pea-green. I
warrant he had leisure to repent of having been rude to the Fairy
Blackstick."
As the years went on, Thackeray became ever more and more famous,
his company more and more sought after. "The kind, tall,
amusing, grey-haired man"* was welcome in many a drawing-room.
Yet with all his success he never forgot his little girls. They
were his fast friends and companions, and very often they wrote
while he dictated his story to them. He worked with a lazy kind
of diligence. He could not, like Scott, sit down and write a
certain number of pages every morning. He was by nature
indolent, yet he got through a great deal of work.
*Lord Houghton.
Death found him still working steadily. He had not been feeling
well, and one evening he went to bed early. Next morning,
Christmas Eve of 1863, he was found dead in bed.
Deep and widespread was the grief of Thackeray's death. The news
"saddened England's Christmas." His friends mourned not only the
loss of a great writer but "the cheerful companionship, the large
heart, and open hand, the simple courteousness, and the endearing
frankness of a brave, true, honest gentleman."*
*In Punch.
*Shirley Brooks.
BOOK TO READ
CHARLES DICKENS was a novelist who lived and wrote at the same
time as Thackeray. He was indeed only six months younger, but he
began to make a name much earlier and was known to fame while
Thackeray was still a struggling artist. When they both became
famous these two great writers were to some extent rivals, and
those who read their books were divided into two camps. For
though both are men of genius, they are men of widely differing
genius.
John Dickens, the father, was a clerk with a small salary in the
Navy Pay Office, and his son Charles was born in 1812 at Portsea.
When Charles was about four his father was moved to Chatham, and
here the little boy Charles lived until he was nine. He was a
very puny little boy, and not able to join in the games of the
other boys of his own age. So he spent most of his time in a
small room where there was some books and where no one else
besides himself cared to go. He not only read the books, but
lived them, and for weeks together he would make believe to
himself that he was his favorite character in whatever book he
might be reading. All his life he loved acting a part and being
somebody else, and at one time thought of becoming an actor.
When the very queer small boy was nine he and all his family
moved to London. Here they lived in a mean little house in a
mean little street. There were now six children, and the father
had grown very poor, so instead of being sent to school Charles
used to black the boots and make himself useful about the house.
But he still had his books to read, and could still make believe
to himself. Things grew worse and worse however, and John
Dickens, who was kind and careless, got into debt deeper and
deeper. Everything in the house that could be done without was
sold, and one by one the precious books went. At length one day
men came and took the father away to prison because he could not
pay his debts.
Then began for Charles the most miserable time of his life. The
poor, sickly little chap was set to work in a blacking factory.
His work was to cover the pots of paste-blacking, tie them down
neatly and paste on the labels. Along with two or three others
boys he worked all day long for six or seven shillings a week.
Oh, how the little boy hated it! He felt degraded and ashamed.
He felt that he was forgotten and neglected by every one, and
that never never more would he be able to read books and play
pretending games, or do anything that he loved. All week he
worked hard, ill clad and only half fed, and Sunday he spent with
this father at the prison. It was a miserable, sordid, and
pitiful beginning to life.
But presently John Dickens got out of prison, Charles left the
blacking factory, and once more went to school. And although in
after years he could never bear to think of these miserable days,
at the time his spirits were not crushed, and at school he was
known as a bright and jolly boy. He was always ready for any
mischief, and took delight in getting up theatricals.
But even while Dickens was leading this hurried, busy life he
found time to write other things besides newspaper reports, and
little tales and sketches began to appear signed by Boz. Boz was
a pet name for Dickens's youngest brother. His real name was
Augustus, but he had been nicknamed Moses after Moses in the
Vicar of Wakefield. Pronounced through the nose it became Boses
and then Boz. That is the history of the name under which
Dickens at first wrote and won his earliest fame.
The sketches by Boz were well received, but real fame came to
Dickens with the Pickwick Papers which he now began to write.
This story came out in monthly parts. The first few numbers were
not very successful, only about four hundred copies being sold,
but by the fifteenth number London was ringing with the fame of
it, and forty thousand copies were quickly sold. "Judges on the
bench and boys in the street, gravity and folly, the young and
the old"* all alike read it and laughed over it. Dickens above
everything is a humorist, and one of the chief features in his
humor is caricature, that is exaggerating and distorting one
feature or habit or characteristic of a man out of all likeness
to nature. This often makes very good fun, but it takes away
from the truth and realness of his characters. And yet no story-
teller perhaps is remembered so little for his stories and so
much for his characters. In Pickwick there is hardly any story,
the papers ramble on in unconnected incidents. No one could tell
the story of Pickwick for there is really none to tell; it is a
series of scenes which hang together anyhow. "Pickwick cannot be
classed as a novel," it has been said; "it is merely a great
book."**
*Forster.
**Gissing.
Dickens himself was full of fun and jollity. His was a florid
personality. He loved light and color, and sunshine. He almost
covered his walls with looking-glasses and crowded his garden
with blazing geraniums. He loved movement and life, overflowed
with it himself and poured it into his creations, making them
live in spite of rather than because of their absurdities.
"'I should be very happy, I'm sure,' said Mr. Winkle, reddening,
'but I have no skates.'
"Old Wardle led the way to a pretty large sheet of ice, and the
fat boy and Mr. Weller, having shovelled and swept away the snow
which had fallen on it during the night, Mr. Bob Sawyer adjusted
his skates with a dexterity which to Mr. Winkle was perfectly
marvellous, and described circles with his left leg, and cut
figures of eight, and inscribed upon the ice, without once
stopping for breath, a great many other pleasant and astonishing
devices, to the excessive satisfaction of Mr. Pickwick, Mr.
Tupman, and the ladies: which reached a pitch of positive
enthusiasm, when old Wardle and Benjamin Allen, assisted by the
aforesaid Bob Sawyer, performed some mystic evolutions, which
they called a reel.
"All this time Mr. Winkle, with his face and hands blue with the
cold, had been forcing gimlet into the soles of his boots, and
putting his skates on, with the points behind, and getting the
straps into a very complicated and entangled state, with the
assistance of Mr. Snodgrass, who knew rather less about skates
than a Hindoo. At length, however, with the assistance of Mr.
Weller, the unfortunate skates were firmly screwed and buckled
on, and Mr. Winkle was raised to his feet.
"'Not a uncommon thing upon ice, Sir,' replied Mr. Weller. 'Hold
up, Sir!'
"This last observation of Mr. Weller's bore reference to a
demonstration Mr. Winkle made at the instant, of a frantic desire
to throw his feet in the air, and dash the back of his head on
the ice.
"'Never mind touching your hat, Sam,' said Mr. Winkle, hastily.
'You needn't take your hand away to do that. I meant to have
given you five shillings this morning for a Christmas-box, Sam.
I'll give it you this afternoon, Sam.'
"Mr. Winkle, stooping forward with his body half doubled up, was
being assisted over the ice by Mr. Weller, in a very singular and
un-swanlike manner, when Mr. Pickwick most innocently shouted
from the opposite bank,--
"'Sam!'
"'Let go, Sir,' said Sam. 'Don't you hear the governor a-
callin'? Let go, Sir.'
"Mr. Pickwick ran to the spot. Bob Sawyer had risen to his feet,
but Mr. Winkle was far too wise to do anything of the kind, in
skates. He was seated on the ice, making spasmodic efforts to
smile, but anguish was depicted on every lineament of his
countenance.
"'Are you hurt?' inquired Mr. Benjamin Allen, with great anxiety.
"'Not much,' said Mr. Winkle, rubbing his back very hard.
"'I wish you'd let me bleed you,' said Mr. Benjamin, with great
eagerness.
"'Lift him up,' said Mr. Pickwick. Sam assisted him to rise.
"Mr. Pickwick retired a few paces apart from the bystanders; and
beckoning his friend to approach, fixed a searching look upon
him, and uttering in a low, but distinct and emphatic tone, these
remarkable words,--
"With these words Mr. Pickwick turned slowly on his heel, and
rejoined his friends."
There is much life and fun and jollity and some vulgarity in
Pickwick. There is a good deal of eating and far too much
drinking. But when the fun is rather rough, we must remember
that Dickens wrote of the England of seventy years ago and more,
when life was rougher than it is now, and when people did not see
that drinking was the sordid sin we know it to be now.
In life there is a great deal that is sad, and one of the things
which touched Dickens most deeply was the misery of children.
The children of to-day are happy in knowing nothing of the
miseries of childhood as it was in the days when Dickens wrote.
In those days tiny children had to work ten or twelve hours a day
in factories, many schools were places of terror and misery, and
few people cared. But Dickens saw and cared and wrote about
these things. And now they are of a bygone day. So children may
remember Dickens with thankful hearts. He is one of their great
champions.
Dickens loved children and they loved him, for he had a most
winning way with them and he understood their little joys and
sorrows. "There are so many people," says his daughter writing
about her father, "There are so many people good, kind, and
affectionate, but who can not remember that they once were
children themselves, and looked out upon the world with a child's
eyes only." This Dickens did always remember, and it made him a
tender and delightful father to whom his children looked up with
something of adoration. "Ever since I can remember anything,"
says his daughter, "I remember him as the good genius of the
house, or as its happy, bright and funny genius." As Thackeray
had a special handwriting for each daughter, Dickens had a
special voice for each child, so that without being named each
knew when he or she was spoken to. He sang funny songs to them
and told funny stories, did conjuring tricks and got up
theatricals, shared their fun and comforted their sorrows. And
this same power of understanding which made him enter into the
joys and sorrows of his children, made him enter into the joys
and sorrows of the big world around him. So that the people of
that big world loved him as a friend, and adored him as a hero.
It was about this time, too, that Dickens found a new way of
entertaining the world. He not only wrote books but he himself
read them to great audiences. All his life Dickens had loved
acting. Indeed he very nearly became an actor before he found
out his great powers of writing. He many times took part in
private theatricals, one of his favorite parts, you will like to
know, being Captain Bobadil, in Jonson's Every Man in his Humor.
And now all the actor in him delighted in the reading of his own
works, so although many of his friends were very much against
these readings, he went on with them. And wherever he read in
England, Scotland, Ireland, and America, crowds flocked to hear
him. Dickens swayed his audiences at will. He made them laugh,
and cry, and whether they cried they cheered and applauded him.
It was a triumph and an evidence of his power in which Dickens
delighted and which he could not forego, although his friends
thought it was beneath his dignity as an author.
But the strain and excitement were too much. These readings
broke down Dickens's health and wore him out. He was at last
forced to give them up, but it was already too late. A few
months later he died suddenly one evening in June 1870 in his
house at Gad's Hill. He was buried in Westminster, and although
the funeral was very quiet and simple as he himself had wished,
for two days after a constant stream of mourners came to place
flowers upon his grave.
I have not given you a list of Dicken's books because they are to
be found in nearly every household. You will soon be able to
read them and learn to know the characters whose names have
become household words.
Dickens was the novelist of the poor, the shabby genteel, and the
lower middle class. It has been said many times that in all his
novels he never drew for us a single gentleman, and that is very
nearly true. But we need little regret that, for he has left us
a rich array of characters we might never otherwise have known,
such as perhaps no other man could have pictured for us.
BOOKS TO READ
"That loves
To purl o'er matted cress and ribbed sand,
Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves,
Drawing into his narrow earthen urn,
In every elbow and turn,
The filter'd tribute of the rough woodland."*
*Ode to Memory.
Of the garden and the fields and of the brook especially, Alfred
kept a memory all through his long life. But at seven he was
sent to live with his grandmother and go to school at Louth,
about ten miles away. "How I did hate that school!" he said,
long afterwards, so we may suppose the years he spent there were
not altogether happy. But when he was eleven he went home again
to be taught by his father, until he went to Cambridge.
The next year Charles and Alfred went to Cambridge. Alfred soon
made many friends among the clever young men of his day, chief
among them being Arthur Hallam, whose father was a famous
historian.
Soon after Alfred left college, his father died very suddenly.
Although the father was now gone the Tennysons did not need to
leave their home, for the new rector did not want the house. So
life in the Rectory went quietly on; friends came and went, the
dearest friend of all, Arthur Hallam, came often, for he loved
the poet's young sister, and one day they were to be married. It
was a peaceful happy time--
Long days were spent reading poetry and talking of many things--
And amid this pleasant country life the poet worked on, and
presently another little book of poems appeared. Still fame did
not come, and one severe and blundering review kept Tennyson, it
is said, from publishing anything more for ten years.
But now there fell upon him what was perhaps the darkest sorrow
of his life. Arthur Hallam, who was traveling on the Continent,
died suddenly at Vienna. When the news came to Tennyson that his
friend was gone--
for a time joy seemed blotted out of life, and only that he might
help to comfort his sister did he wish to live, for--
After the prologue, the poem tells of the first bitter hopeless
grief, of how friends try to comfort the mourners.
But when Christmas comes again the year has brought calm if not
forgetfulness--
The years pass on, the brothers and sisters grow up and scatter,
and at last the old home has to be left. Sadly the poet takes
leave of all the loved spots in house and garden. Strangers will
soon come there, people who will neither care for nor love the
dear familiar scene--
The poem moves on, and once again in the new home Christmas comes
round. Here everything is strange, the very bells seem like
strangers' voices. But with this new life new strength has come,
and sorrow has henceforth lost its sting. And with the ringing
of the New Year bells a new tone comes into the poem, a tone no
more of despair, but of hope.
After this the tone of the poem changes and the poet says--
Time heals all things, and time healed Tennyson's grief. But
there was another reason, of which we hardly catch a glimpse in
the poem, for his return to peace and hope. Another love had
come into his life, the love of the lady who one day was to be
his wife. At first, however, it seemed a hopeless love, for in
spite of his growing reputation as a poet, Tennyson was still
poor, too poor to marry. And so for fourteen years he worked and
waited, at times wellnigh losing hope. But at length the waiting
was over and the wedding took place. Tennyson amused the guests
by saying that it was the nicest wedding he had ever been at.
And long afterwards with solemn thankfulness he said, speaking of
his wife, "The peace of God came into my life before the altar
when I wedded her."
A few months before the wedding Wordsworth had died. One night a
few months after it Tennyson dreamt that the Prince Consort came
and kissed him on the cheek. "Very kind but very German," he
said in his dream. Next morning a letter arrived offering him
the Laureateship.
One of the first poems Tennyson wrote as laureate was his Ode on
the Death of Wellington. Few people liked it at the time, but
now it has taken its place among our fine poems, and many of its
lines are familiar household words.
One story of the Idylls I have already told you. Some day you
will read the others, and learn for yourselves--
Tennyson led a peaceful, simple life. He made his home for the
most part in the Isle of Wight. Here he lived quietly,
surrounded by his family, but sought after by all the great
people of his day. He refused a baronetcy, but at length in 1883
accepted a peerage and became Lord Tennyson, the first baron of
his name. He was the first peer to receive the title purely
because of his literary work. And so with gathering honors and
gathering years the poet lived and worked, a splendid old man.
Then at the goodly age of eighty-four he died in the autumn of
1892.
BOOK TO READ
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